When Christmas Eve fixtures were a regular occurrence for Wolves

There won’t be room for such fun and frivolity at Molineux this Christmas Eve.  Certainly not on the pitch, anyway.

For the first time in 57 years, Wolves are playing on December 24.  The Premier League and Sky Sports needed a game to drop into their schedule and, in their wisdom, Wolves against Chelsea is the one.

There has been mixed reaction among the Molineux faithful, many of whom prefer the traditional Boxing Day shindig for their festive footballing fix.

What then, is the precedent for footy on Chrimbo Eve?  It was 1995 the last time a top-flight fixture took place on that particular date in the calendar, as Leeds beat Manchester United 3-1 with McAllister opening the scoring.  He wasn’t Home Alone.

For Wolves, it was back in 1966, when Christmas Eve football wasn’t a completely new phenomenon.  Wolves have actually played 13 times on Christmas Eve, and even had fixtures on Christmas Day, the most recent being in 1956, a 2-1 defeat at Charlton. The first one to take place on December 24 was all the way back in 1892, away at Nottingham Forest.  When you first took my hand on a cold Christmas Eve, you promised the Town Ground – Forest’s stadium back then – was waiting for me.

But back to the winter of ‘66. When Wolves welcomed Derby County to Molineux.  Wolves were sitting pretty heading into the game, in third place in Division Two with games in hand on Ipswich and Carlisle above, while the Rams, less than five months before the transformative arrival of Brian Clough, were sixth from bottom.

A home banker perhaps?  Well not inside the first minute, when, as described by legendary Express & Star reporter Phil Morgan, ‘there was a shock opening after Wolves had lost the toss’.

He continued: “Defending the Hotel End, they were a goal down in 40 seconds, even quicker than their own success at Birmingham last week.”

The Derby goalscorer was Alan Durban, three seasons into an impressive decade with the Rams in which he would win a league title, and it was a dramatic start to a dramatic game which kept the festive audience of 24,378 on the edge of their seats.

Wolves hit back to lead 3-1, were pegged back to 3-3 by half-time, but then struck twice after the break to secure a 5-3 victory.

The goals that day came from Hughie McIlmoyle, back from injury, and two apiece – one in each half – from Terry Wharton and Bob Hatton, taking him to four in his first four Wolves appearances at the age of just 19.

As tradition would then have it, the two sides met again two days later, this time at the Baseball Ground, and Wolves won again, more comfortably, by three goals to nil.

The scorers? Hatton, McIlmoyle and Wharton.  When the band finished playing, they howled out for more.

As luck would have it, both Hatton and Wharton were at Molineux last week, on a stadium tour for Wolves Former Players’ Association organised by the club with FPA chairman John Richards.

Given it was nearly six decades ago, given their collective tally of appearances is well past a thousand, and goals into the hundreds, it is no surprise that neither can remember the specifics of that Christmas Eve afternoon.  Even though it must have provided some happy memories of their respective Molineux tenures.