“From a young age, we were conditioned to accept we were training on Christmas Day,” former Chelsea, Benfica and West Ham United midfielder and Charlton TV host Scott Minto told The New York Times, casting his mind back to his formative years as a youngster at Charlton Athletic.
“I quite liked it. There would be no traffic on the roads
for a start. We would probably do a light session because we all wanted to go
home, perhaps a five-a-side or an 11-v-11 training game.
“I felt conditioned quite early that this is an exciting
time of the year and actually you’re playing a part of it.”
Although the routines are the same, there was something
different about training on Christmas morning.
“Towards the end of my career, I would have a glass of wine
with my Christmas dinner,” Minto says. “Even during the season, if I
fancied a glass of wine with my dinner the night before, I would.”
Back in the day teams would play on Christmas Day and Boxing
Day against the same club. If the
fixture was at The Valley, the air would be full of the smell of Will’s Whiffs,
a cheap ‘cigar’ given in packs of five as a Christmas present.
Given limited bus services, it was quite difficult for players to get to The Valley. Some were close enough to walk, but others hitched a lift with fans.
If Charlton were playing on Christmas Day, we didn’t go as
it was the only chance my newsagent uncle and his wife had to join us for a
meal from the RACS hamper. Imagine my
disappointment when we were due to go to a Boxing Day fixture and I woke to a
thick covering of snow.
On one notorious occasion in the 1950s a Charlton team
returning from a fixture ‘oop north drank the dining car staff under the table
(trains used to run on Christmas Day).
