Modern-day footballers have never had the experience of having to play competitive football on Christmas Day, and they probably never will have. We have to go back to 1958 to find the last time that the Preston North End team, including Tom Finney, had to play on that festive, family day. Mind you it was only a short hop, skip and a jump to Blackpool on that occasion. But North End in the past, have had to travel to London seven times and once had to journey all the way to Portsmouth (1937).

In all, PNE have played 39 league games on Christmas Day, with a fair record of won 14, drawn 10 and lost 15. Unbelievably the last 27 of those games were played away from home - somebody must have upset the fixture compilers! The last league game played at Deepdale on a Christmas Day was against Glossop North End in 1912.

Looking through the record books, the very first time that Preston North End played on a Christmas Day was way back in 1882, just two years after the Club's formation as a football team. Ironically, no, unbelievably, the team played twice that day. The first game, here at Deepdale, kicked off at 11am. against Lower Darwen, in front of 700 spectators. In those distant days the game in general was played with six forwards, two on the right, two on the left and twin centre-forwards. Nuttall, one of those centre-forwards, scored all three goals for Preston in a close 3-2 win.

Later that afternoon, with virtually the same team, North End took on a selected team of 'Eleven of the Town', the best of the rest in Preston. The visitors departed Deepdale with a 7-1 defeat. Only goalkeeper Billy Joy and inside-left Fred Dewhurst stood down from the eleven that had beaten Lower Darwen earlier that day.

Preston North End's first league Christmas Dat match was in 1889, at Deepdale, versus Aston Villa. A crowd of 9,000 saw North End start the game "up the incline". Nick Ross, the great pre-league full-back and former captain, had returned to Deepdale after a season with Everton, and was now playing centre-forward. The versatile, dominant Scotsman gave North End an early lead after six minutes, but the advantage only lasted nine minutes before Moore equalised.

Villa then took the lead through Dickson after 23 minutes and defended it until half-time. Five minutes after the break, Ross, ever the aggressor, made it 2-2. Fittingly, it was he again who settled the affair, scoring a splendid goal on 64 minutes to earn the team a 3-2 win. He had just registered Preston North End's first ever hat-trick scored on Christmas Day, in a league match. It was his fourth hat-trick of the season.

Cracking Christmas Facts

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Nick Ross's feat was eventually bettered in 1950 when Charlie Wayman scored all four of Preston North End's goals in their festive 4-1 away win against Queens Park Rangers.
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Out of the last eight league goals scored by Preston North End on Christmas Day, six of them were scored by the prolific Tommy Thompson.
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The Club's biggest victory on a Christmas Day was in their famous pre-league days in 1886 when they trounced Bolton Wanderers 12-1 (The Invincibles also beat Glasgow Rangers 8-1, Blackburn Rovers 8-2 and Aston Villa 11-1 that season).
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In 1884 Preston North End played on the 25th, 26th and 27th December and only used 12 players. They built them tough in those days!

Merry Christmas to Preston North End fans everywhere.

Ian Rigby