Twelve months on from a festive period that occurred amidst power cuts and the three day week, Christmas 1974, while not having events of comparable hardship still had anxieties and unease of its own as the midway point of the decade drew ever closer.
As a consequence of the economic turmoil gripping the U.K. as the year began, Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath called a general election for February 1974, which saw his party removed from office, Labour under Harold Wilson regaining the power they had lost to Heath and the Conservatives in 1970. Yet due to the close run nature of the result they could only form a minority government – and although Wilson won again when he went to the country in October 1974, a majority of just three was no basis for imminent political stability.
Indeed, the country had a different leader to when the Xmas decorations last came out and in the wake of high inflation and crippling balance of trade deficits, there was not even a 1974 Morecombe & Wise Christmas special to lift spirits. The comedy duo, whose annual festive shows had been watched with insatiable interest by millions of viewers during the preceding three years, deciding to take a sabbatical in this particular year.
If that was not bad enough, while ‘Merry Xmas Everybody‘ by Slade had cheered the populace through the tough times of the previous Yuletide, at number one through December 1974 was ‘Lonely This Christmas‘ by Mud – not a song to strike merriment into the heart of any year-end reveller and suitably downbeat way to end a fitful year.
For many football offered diversion from the disconcerting nature of the times, but neither was the game immune from uncertainty, Division One on Boxing Day far different to how it looked on December 26 1973.
On that day 52 weeks earlier unbeaten leaders Leeds United held a commanding lead at the top of the table, their season culminating in the second league title of the Don Revie era – the triumph proving his swansong when he left Elland Road after 13 years in charge to become England coach in June 1974.
After 44 turbulent days under his successor Brian Clough, the Leeds directors, following a poor start to the campaign, put an end to the defeats and dressing room dissent that were amassing, by making a change of manager. Next incumbent Jimmy Armfield proved a steadying influence, yet even then Leeds were thirteen places shy of where they had been when Santa last came down the chimney.
But even if it meant looking much further down the Division One table to find Leeds than in many a long year, at least they could be found – unlike Manchester United, who were taking a second division sojourn after being relegated at the end of 1973-74. Their absence gave the top flight a perplexing look, particularly as Carlisle United and Luton Town, two of the three promoted sides, had passed Tommy Docherty’s side when moving in the opposite direction.
Occupying two of the bottom three places when the halls were being decked with holy was no more than had been predicted for either – the other team to have gone up, runaway champions Middlesbrough, were taking promotion in their stride – yet there was more than a hint of surprise in finding Ipswich Town and Everton holding down respective positions of first and second.
Both, however, in the season to be jolly, would have little to feel festive about. Goodison Park and Portman Road each played host to pantomimes over the Christmas period as inconsistencies, that would become a feature of the most convoluted title tussle in a generation, came to the fore.
Halfway through their first campaign with Bob Paisley at the helm, Liverpool had stuttered rather than surged into a third and while fourth placed Manchester City could be depended on to win at home, their away form left plenty to be desired, a vast improvement on venturing beyond Maine Road required if they were to prolong a championship push.
With only four points separating the top eight the side displaying the most consistency were the normally erratic West Ham. Not only had they climbed from bottom to fifth as the shopping days until Christmas came down by the week, The Hammers were also by some distance the highest-placed London club.
Loitering in the lower reaches were QPR, Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea, but such was the congestion throughout the listings, those operating in mid-table such as Wolves, Sheffield United, Derby County and Newcastle were as close to breaking into the top four as they were to dropping into the bottom three – Derby in tenth, for example, not ruling out going through the relegation trap door or on the other hand, winning the title…….
Through the spring of 1975 the aspiration of becoming champions and anxiety of avoiding the drop gathered momentum, although at times it was hard to work out who was doing exactly what.
Appropriate then, ITV should chose to show ‘The Great Race‘ as their 1974 Boxing Day afternoon film.
DIVISION ONE – Boxing Day 1974
LIVERPOOL 4 MANCHESTER CITY 1: The biggest game of Boxing Day 1974 attracted the largest Division One gate (although the highest anywhere was the 51,104 at Old Trafford where Manchester United maintained leadership of Division Two with victory over West Brom), third placed Liverpool dispensing of Manchester City with a minimum of festive fuss.
Coinciding with a BBC 1 showing of The Beatles second feature film, it was Manchester City calling ‘Help‘ on conceding three times before the break, their defence carved up like a Christmas day turkey as Brian Hall (22), John Toshack (25) and Steve Heighway (40) put the issue beyond any doubt – the hosts belying a recent lack of application that had seen them record just one win the past eight league games.
England international midfielder, the always classy Colin Bell, reduced the deficit eight minutes after half-time, but in truth the outcome had already been decided. City, whose rotten away form extended into a seventh game, (the previous six yielding four defeats and two draws), never looked likely to stop the rot, Hall scoring again 18 minutes from time as Liverpool hit top spot due to this resounding Anfield win – and a festive faux pas elsewhere.
IPSWICH TOWN 0 LUTON TOWN 1: After replacing Everton in pole position the previous weekend, Ipswich were not expected to suffer any form of Boxing Day blues against bottom of the pile Luton. But the Portman Road outfit were the latest to discover leading the field was more poisoned challis than cup of cheer.
Despite having ended their eleven match winless run with victory over Derby in the last fixture, the odds were stacked against The Hatters leaving East Anglia with anything other than a Yuletide undoing. After 89 largely uneventful minutes the thoughts of some present may have been straying toward a 5.20pm showing of ‘The Christmas Golden Shot‘ when the game finally produced one of its own – Luton striker Ron Futcher breaking the deadlock with only seconds left.
The festive period was to become better for Futcher two days later when he netted a hat-trick as Harry Haslam’s side scored a home win over Wolves. At the same time as Luton were recording a 3-2 Kenilworth Road win over their Molineux visitors, Ipswich recovered some Christmas credibility with victory at Birmingham to head the table at the year-end – 50 years later to the day finding them in the top flight relegation places.
WOLVES 2 EVERTON 0: If Ipswich had their Christmas calamity on Boxing Day then for Everton it had come a few days earlier. Expected to make short work of lowly Carlisle on the shortest day of the year, The Toffees succumbed to a 3-2 defeat after holding a 2-0 interval lead, a first home defeat of the campaign making them the latest to trip on going top.
The opportunity to bounce back came in the form of a visit to the Black Country – only for Everton to encounter a Wolves side enjoying their most profitable period of the season.
In the 100th meeting of two founder members of the Football League, the Molineux side went ahead through a first half Kenny Hibbitt penalty, awarded after Everton skipper Mike Lyons was adjudged to have handled, the lead doubled and points made secure with a Steve Kindon strike just after the hour.
With only one defeat in the last eight Wolves appeared to be building a head of steam but went off the boil as quickly as the next game which brought defeat at Luton. Bill McGarry’s men continued in hit and miss vein thereafter and eventually finished 11th, the same spot they occupied on Boxing Day.
Everton meanwhile had much to rue when it came to faltering at opportune moments – these successive December defeats, coupled with an Easter Saturday reversal at Carlisle proved costly to Billy Bingham’s side in the final reckoning.
CARLISLE UNITED 1 NEWCASTLE UNITED 2: The sunny times in August when Carlisle recorded three straight wins to lead the table at the end of the first week felt a long time ago when the 12 days of Christmas came calling – a run of six successive defeats through autumn marginally improved with two wins in the previous three, the latest being their Goodison gazumping of Everton four days before.
Among the black and whites heading west from Newcastle along the A69 would have been Likely Lad Terry Collier (James Bolam), the fixture referenced in the superb Christmas special of ‘Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads’ that aired for the first time on Christmas Eve 1974.
Entering the contest in the midst of undulating form – their previous two games a fifth round League Cup replay defeat at fourth division Chester City and impressive 3-0 home win over Leeds – Newcastle went ahead at Brunton Park with a 28th minute John Tudor goal, the Cumbrians apparently salvaging a point when Bobby Own levelled with 12 minutes left.
In conveying to pal Bob Ferris (Rodney Bewes) why Christmas Day can come and go, Collier explains he is waiting for Boxing Day, ‘when some semblance of normality returns and Newcastle play Carlisle.’
Having not scored for six matches, Malcolm Macdonald finally restored a sense of normality – Newcastle and England striker ‘Supermac‘ netting with virtually the last kick of the game to send Collier and his fellow travellers back to Tyneside feeling joyful and triumphant.
MIDDLESBROUGH 1 SHEFFIELD UNITED 0: Having won Division Two by some distance the season before, Boro had wasted no time in finding their top flight feet – this battling, Boxing Day victory lifting them to sixth.
The outcome was settled by a 4th minute David Armstrong strike, the only goal of a hard-fought encounter ensuring they recorded a fifth through an unbeaten trot now stretching back eight games – an impressive sequence that would continue with a Goodison Park draw two days later as Ayresome Park supremo Jack Charlton saw in 1975 with his side in second place.
Defeat on Teesside was a third straight loss for the visitors who dropped to twelfth as a result – Ken Furphy’s Blades having good reason to be rueful of these festive flops when they finished just short of a UEFA Cup spot come April.
QUEENS PARK RANGERS 4 LEICESTER CITY 2: Second bottom Leicester showed up in Shepherd’s Bush with goodwill in abundance as they gifted the home side a second half goal bonanza.
Ahead through a goal from England winger Dave Thomas nine minutes before the interval, things suddenly turned wintry for the W12 hosts when Bob Lee netted twice in a minute to put the Foxes in front as the hour mark approached.
But showing a similar lack of resistance as the England batsmen in faraway Melbourne, where earlier in the day they had once more been skittled by Thomson and Lillee, Leicester endured a collapse of their own – efforts from Danny Westwood (74), John Beck (81) and Don Givens (89) taking Rangers to a third win on the bounce.
Continuing their improvement under Dave Sexton following early season upheaval that resulted in the departure of former boss Gordon Jago, things took on an even more pleasing perspective two days later, QPR climbing to 13th when Sexton took his new charges to Stamford Bridge where the Hoops scored a 3-0 win – Chelsea being the club who had sacked him four months earlier.
Rangers would maintain such progress through the months ahead and for the second season running would finish as the highest placed London club. For Leicester, who came in ninth the previous season, their sorry state of affairs would continue for some time. Defeat at Loftus Road was their eighth in nine winless games, the run eventually reaching 13.
But when the upturn came it proved significant – elevating them to 18th with a three point buffer between them and third bottom.
COVENTRY CITY 2 STOKE CITY 0: Going into December all looked calm, all looked bright for Stoke who with a third of the month gone took on the role of front-runners. But since then things had gone to pot in the Potteries – Tony Waddington’s side continuing to look beleaguered as they slumped to a third defeat on the trot in going down at Highfield Road.
Sixth bottom Coventry had so far through the campaign not pulled up any trees, Christmas or otherwise, but second half goals from David Cross (65) and Scottish international winger Tommy Hutchinson (72) eased any fears of spending late-December in the drop zone.
Stoke finally found some festive finery with a win over visiting West Ham on December 28 – a 2-1 victory sending them up two places to fifth – which would also be their final placing.
DERBY COUNTY 2 BIRMINGHAM CITY 1: Also playing host to a Midlands derby was the Baseball Ground, where the home side, down in the December doldrums following successive defeats, entertained mid-table merchants Birmingham.
In their two previous matches the Rams had been rolled over by top of the table Everton and bottom placed Luton, Blues therefore presenting a challenge somewhere in the middle – Bruce Rioch finally making it feel like Christmas for the locals when he fired the hosts into a sixth minute lead.
Midway through the second half Bob Hatton equalised for the visitors, his tenth goal of the season looking enough to earn a share of the spoils. Yet they left empty-handed on conceding late on following a goalmouth scramble – the winner attributed to Derby striker Jeff in a case of the Bourne identity.
Securing his side victory with a last knockings winner would have put Bourne in festive frame of mind, although even then would not have smiled with the force as the one commentator Barry Davies saw on the face of Francis Lee two days later – the former Manchester City forward making a ‘very interesting‘ contribution to the 2-1 win Derby were to record at Maine Road.
ARSENAL 1 CHELSEA 2: Christmas often brings a tendency to look back and reflect, sometimes prompting a notion that better days have slipped into the past almost unnoticed – this London derby finding both harking back to when times had far more tinsel attached.
The era when this fixture was a blockbuster had, for the moment, gone (evident in the relatively small attendance figure), two sides in forlorn festive fettle now cast in a B-picture, preoccupied with keeping their heads above water rather than holding up a trophy.
With Chelsea in fourth bottom and the home side just two places above, but on the same (19) number of points, neither had much in the way of form to speak of. It was the visitors, however, who appeared the most roused, a first half Chris Garland brace establishing a 2-0 lead as Highbury faced up to the prospect of beginning 1975 as a prospective relegation-residence.
After the break an Arsenal XI containing five ‘double’ winning veterans and World Cup winner Alan Ball offered a better account of themselves, yet despite Ball reducing the deficit with a 64th minute penalty Chelsea held out in taking the points back to SW6 as for the Gunners 1974-75 continued to go west.
But in the final analysis it would be Arsenal who would avert the worst, Stamford Bridge soon to be assigned with second division status.
LEEDS UNITED 2 BURNLEY 2: Twelve months ago a Boxing Day win at Newcastle enabled Leeds to maintain their 22-match unbeaten start to 1973-74 and look down upon the rest of the field from a seven point vantage spot, the title already having a nigh-on certain West Yorkshire destination.
The ghosts of that Christmas past involved Don Revie in charge of the league leaders, Sir Alf still as England boss, Bill Shankly at the Anfield reigns, with the outspoken, (often on the subject of Leeds United), Brian Clough, thought the most unlikely figure to replace Revie should he ever exit Elland Road – especially as he was then plying his trade at third division Brighton.
Twenty three matches into the current season, to stand 13th at this juncture would normally mean writing off any hope of retaining the title, but only trailing the leaders by six points still offered ‘stranger things have happened‘ connotations – five wins and a draw in the last eight league matches, along with safe passage to the European Cup quarter-finals, suggesting Armfield was beginning to have the desired effect.
But at the very least advancement up the table would have to involve not being pegged back each time a lead was taken. Scottish internationals Joe Jordan (15) and Peter Lorimer (68) twice obliged on this occasion, but each time eighth-placed Burnley replied through Welsh international winger Leighton James, whose second leveller, fired home with seven minutes to go, allowed Jimmy Adamson’s side to leave with a point.
The Turf Moor outfit, having lost only two of their last nine games, then wrapped up 1974 with a home win over Carlisle, a result that saw them rise to sixth – all of which made a third round FA Cup exit against Southern League visitors Wimbledon in the Clarets first match of the new year even harder to fathom.
WEST HAM UNITED 1 SPURS 1: At Upton Park things were a curious contrast of merry and bright opposed to bah humbug, such was the contrasting fortunes of these London rivals.
The Hammers, eight games unbeaten and with only one league loss in 16, had shrugged off an inauspicious start to await Santa as genuine title contenders. Now in the charge of John Lyall, who during the summer succeeded Ron Greenwood (now operating as general manager), West Ham had made a steady climb into fifth.
Their new found solidity was diametrically opposed to the slipshod efforts of Spurs who were misfiring badly in the post Bill Nicholson-era (the trophy-winning totem having resigned in late-August), two wins in the last seven making for a blue, rather than white, Christmas at the Lane.
There was a flashback to festive days of yore when Hammers old-boy Martin Peters put the visitors ahead on 18 minutes, the 1966 World Cup winner netting his 46th and final goal in a Tottenham shirt, a five-season White Hart Lane spell ending with a move to newly promoted Norwich City in the summer of 1975.
But Spurs, now with Terry Neill overseeing things, were only ahead eight minutes before Keith Robson struck back for West Ham, the home side, despite enjoying the greater share of possession in what remained of the contest, unable to secure the victory that would have hoisted them into second.
While Tottenham continued to falter, their avoidance of relegation a skin of the teeth affair, West Ham after looking UEFA Cup qualification candidates (at least) at the turn of the year, lost league momentum thereafter, but ultimately secured European football through a different route – their FA Cup Final triumph against second division Fulham taking Cup Winners’ Cup interest to E13.
It is hard to comprehend that Wembley success of 1975 will soon be half a century in the past with equal mists of time bewilderment attached to the only season Carlisle United have spent in the top flight. During the two score and ten years to have elapsed since, semblance of normality at Brunton Park has been the bottom tier of English football (along with one campaign outside the league altogether) where they have spent over half of the seasons that have come and gone.
Fifty years on from when they entertained ‘Supermac‘ (and Terry Collier), Boxing Day 2024 involves a visit to Brunton Park by Morecombe – a name synonymous with festive U.K. television of the 1970s.
Although not Christmas 1974……….
DIVISION ONE – Thursday 26 December 1974:
Liverpool 4 Manchester City 1 (46,062); Ipswich Town 0 Luton Town 1 (23, 406); Wolves 2 Everton 0 (33,120); Carlisle United 1 Newcastle United 2 (25,000); Middlesbrough 1 Sheffield United 0 (31, 879);
QPR 4 Leicester City 2 (17,311); Coventry City 2 Stoke City 0 (22,345); Derby County 2 Birmingham City 1 (26, 121); Arsenal 1 Chelsea 2 (33,784); Leeds United 2 Burnley 2 (34,724); West Ham United 1 Spurs 1 (37, 682);
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