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"Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle all the way; Oh what fun it is to see Chelsea win away. Hey!" The lower tier of the School End of Queens Park Rangers Loftus Road was packed solid with a very festive-sounding Chelsea choral section in this particular part of South Africa Road London, W12. It was Boxing Day 1981. Kick-off was still 90 minutes away, scheduled for the rather peculiar time of 11:30am. Even the frigid temperature was not going to dampen spirits, especially of those who were clearly still feeling the effects of their Christmas Day excesses. Not me or one of my elder brothers though as we stood and swayed on that School End in amongst the overflowing Chelsea support, part of the wide-eyed and amazed, feeling blessed to be part of the festive football fun. Fun which began for us the moment we closed the front garden gate behind us to set out on the short hop across west London on the underground. Chelseas hideously coloured yellow away shirt, which came resplendent with a Santa red pinstripe, added to the sense of occasion, as did the weather. In the lead-up to Christmas 1981, London had been blanketed by a foot of snow. However no fear this game would be postponed. This was the era of the Plastic Pitch. An Omniturf surface had been installed at Loftus Road the previous summer. Pioneering stuff. QPR became the first English professional club to play on a non-natural surface. Some clever wag or wags with little malice intended had broken into Loftus Road ahead of the game and discovered their inner Banksy. Whitewashing in foot-high block capitals on the pitch by the halfway line over towards the touchline, a few words that in later years I would go on to recognize as a famous Chelsea terrace away-day refrain. A rare occasion in those days that the TV cameras were in attendance for a second division game was likely their motivation. Yes folks, this wasnt your globally enshrined English Premier League. This was the hard as nails English Second Division and Chelseas natural habitat through the late 1970s and 1980s. Off the pitch during this era, Chelsea was a club in shambolic disarray. Chairman Brian Mears, the grandson of Chelsea co-founder Jo Mears, led an overly outrageous attempt to redevelop and regenerate Stamford Bridge. As contrived by the property developers Mears was in bed with, their plans included Chelsea relocating to Loftus Road, with Fulham and QPR merging. Spiralling interest rates alongside economic gloom up and down the country was the backdrop. Not the cleverest of types was Brain Mears. Chelsea was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Thank heavens for the intervention of the then Lord of the Stamford Bridge manor, Viscount Chelsea and a chap who would win two Oscars for his adaptation of Ghandi, Lord Attenborough. A club director at the time since 1993, Attenborough has been Chelseas Life Long Honorary Vice President. Chelsea had gone into the 1981 Boxing Day action at Loftus Road on the back of a five-game unbeaten streak. In a game dominated by the home team, very much against the run of play, Chelsea went ahead midway through the second half. When Clive Walkers shot from the edge of the box found the far corner of the net, this was the cue for the toilet paper and Christmas streamers from the upper tier and for the overflowing crowd in the lower tier, which was already hugging the touchline, to surge ever close to the edge of the pitch. I was so close to the action, I was half expecting the PA announcer to award me an assist on the Walker opener. Chelsea added a second shortly after and left Loftus Road with the three points. The crowd was announced as a little over 22,000. Im sure 21,998 of them arrived slightly inebriated with every one of the 5,000-plus Chelsea supporters in attendance leaving Loftus Road punch drunk. The 2012 European Champions finished that 1981/82 season though in a lowly 12th place. Worse was to befall the club the following season when but for a win in their penultimate game of the season, they staved off relegation to the English football backwaters of Division 3. Clive Walker scored the winner that day, too. Very much an old-fashioned winger with jet heels that left defenders frozen to the spot, Abramovich would likely invest £50M in today, Walker arrived at Chelsea the old-fashioned way. He earned it as a highly regarded reserve team player. Walker spent time in the NASL when Chelsea sent him out on loan to Fort Lauderdale for one off-season. There you go then. Neither Beckham nor his people invented bi-lateral soccer loan agreements between the old allies. Its been going on for roughly four decades. Speaking to much more innocent times, the earliest recorded Boxing Day game in England occurred all the way back in 1881 when Hotspur played Reading Minster in an FA Cup third round replay. It would be another decade before Boxing Day fixtures became a staple in the English Football League. Remarkably, many teams also played 24 hours earlier on Christmas Day. Imagine that, Arsene? Not that I count, but I am rigidly opposed to any form of a winter break. Whats the point? So Englands richest clubs can fare better against their footballing superior European counterparts? Last time I checked, English clubs seemed to be holding their own and have done since first permitted to participate on the European stage. For the inaugural 1955-56 European Cup, the predecessor of the UEFA Champions League, the English Champions were persuaded by the Football League not to participate. That so-termed club with no history, Chelsea as the champions would have had the honour of being English footballs lone representative in a brand new mid-week tournament, which today is the global standard-bearer for club football. Not to be. At least with no over-packed fixture list nor daunting travel by boat to the continent for midweek matches, Chelsea could purely focus on retaining the title. Everyone at Stamford Bridge apparently forgot to read the script. The following season, Chelsea only managed to win 14 of 42 matches and finished just above the relegation places. Please stop it now. Liverpools quite superb and highly unexpected renaissance this season is purely down to the fact they are not playing in the Champions or Europa League. Codswallop. Instead, doff your cap to Brendan Rodgers, Suarez, Henderson, et al. Do remind me again please how many times did Little Luis hotfooted it from Merseyside to Montevideo this fall for his nations Brazil 2014 cause? Then theres the ludicrous argument, the English national team would fare better than the 50 years and counting zeitgeist of invariably tripping over in the first or second knockout stage of international tournaments. Well, before we dismantle one of the last remaining century-plus traditions that is the festive fixture list, how about a government inquiry into bog standard soccer and antiquated attitudes which prevail throughout? We seem to forget back on October 26, 1863 when a number of influential gentlemen gathered at the Connaught Rooms in Central London and devised the rules of modern day football, they did so on behalf of everyone, not just a chosen few. This very select sub-set of overpaid, over-pampered and over-hyped footballers are in desperate need of instilling the more traditional football faiths and attitudes; ones which take us back to a more innocence and respect for all time. This was most famously captured when Portuguese legend Eusebio had an opportunity very late on in the 1968 European Cup Final to win it in normal time for Benfica, his close-range effort cannoning off the Manchester United goalkeeper Alex Stepney, who, on realizing he had the ball, gratefully kicked it way up-field and away from danger. This was Eusebios cue to walk over towards Stepney with an outreached hand and in that moment with a smile on his face, congratulate Stepney for the game-winning save. Somehow I cant imagine Eusebios compatriot Ronaldo doing that exact same thing in next springs Champions League Final. In recent years, more and more of English footballs traditional characteristics and codes have fallen by the wayside - victim of the modern day over-commercialization culture which sadly reigns oh so supreme. Boxing Day still stands above. Just ask the family of Gary Parkinson, who was in attendance at Middlesbrough Thursday as they played another of his ex-clubs, Burnley. The ex-professional, who started his career at Everton, attended his first professional game Thursday since been diagnosed with locked-in syndrome following a 2010 stroke. According to the BBC, Parkinson requires 24-hour care, unable to speak, move or swallow and spent two years in hospital before returning home ahead of Christmas 2012. This the best example and true testament to the deep-rooted Boxing Day soccer culture that envelops the nation which invented the modern game exactly 150 years ago. Thursday, the very full complement of 158 professional and semi-professional football clubs were in action up and down jolly old England, where, for many of the lower league clubs especially, they will have recorded their largest attendance of the season plus experienced their best action of the season at the box office and club shop. Remember all you newly recruited Chelsea supporters, your club used to be part of that lower league football fraternity not that many years ago. Then ask those, who so add to the unique English soccer culture and setting, the local traders which litter the immediate surrounding areas of the Englands sacred soccer grounds how they fared Thursday. I for one will certainly raise a glass that my children and their children will always have opportunity to experience Santa and soccer in one sleep or less. It was Boxing Day 1976 when the Sex Pistols, fronted by legendry Arsenal supporter John Lydon, went into a London recording studio located not very far from the Highbury shrine and recorded the anthemic, God Save the Queen, a song dedicated to the working class, that outstanding cloth-capped brigade on whose very shoulders the pillars of English football rest upon. Bless you Mr. Rotten. You can reach and follow Noel Butler at:Noel.Butler@BellMedia.ca @TheSoccerNoel on Twitter Norm Cash Jersey . Thats the feeling that eight Canadian Football League teams are experiencing right now in advance of the expansion draft to stock the Ottawa Redblacks. Doug Brocail Jersey . UEFA said Wednesday that the champions of England and France only have to include five home-trained players in their 21-man squads next season instead of the expected eight. Only one of the five players needs to be trained by the club itself. https://www.cheaptigers.com/1189z-travis...sey-tigers.html. Harris has played in six games since joining the Argos in 2012, completing 17-of-35 passes for 256 yards and one touchdown. Niko Goodrum Jersey . The team said they will announce a corresponding roster move prior to their series opener on Tuesday night in Kansas City. Jack Morris Jersey . The redshirt freshman finished the regular season with nearly 3,500 passing yards, and 35 touchdowns with another three on the ground while leading the Seminoles to the top of the BCS Rankings.ST. LOUIS - Vladimir Sobotka needed just a couple shifts to return to top form Thursday night. Back after missed the previous 12 games because of a left knee injury, Sobotka had a goal and two assists to help the NHL-leading St. Louis Blues beat the Edmonton Oilers 6-2 on Thursday night. "I just kept it simple," Sobotka said after the fifth three-point game of his career. "It was about timing. As the game went along, I got a little faster and a little stronger." St. Louis has won six of seven overall and eight of nine against Edmonton. Alex Pietrangelo started a four-goal third period and Jaden Schwartz added two goals for the Blues, who outscored Edmonton 17-4 in sweeping the three-game season series. Pietrangelo, Schwartz and T.J. Oshie scored in 7:14 span at the outset of the third period to break a 2-2 tie, and Schwartz added his second goal of the period at 12:56. Ryan Miller made 23 saves to improve to 5-0-1 since joining the Blues in a trade with Buffalo on Feb. 28. Hes 7-0 against Edmonton. Sobotka scored late in the first period and then set up the winning goal 42 seconds into the third period. He stole the puck from Andrew Ference in the corner and found Pietrangelo wide open in the slot for a 3-2 lead. "We knew he was going to bring some energy and some bite back into our lineup," Pietrangelo said. "Whether he felt his best or not, it certainly looked like he didnt miss a beat. We kind of needed a little extra jump and he seems to have brought it." Pietrangelo felt he had to capitalize on Sobotkas hard work in the corner "It was a great pass, Id better bury it," Pietrangelo said. Vladimir Tarasenko also scored for St. Louis, and Oshie added two assists.dddddddddddd. Miller has stopped 134 of 145 shots in six games with St. Louis and has yet to lose in regulation. He has a 1.82 goals-against-average and .924 save percentage with the Blues. David Perron and Mark Fraser scored for Edmonton. Perron spent six seasons in St. Louis and leads the Oilers with 25 goals. Edmonton tied it at 2 late in the second period on Frasers shot from close range. The Blues then took over with a near-perfect third period. "We played with tempo and we played with speed in the neutral zone," St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We were really effective. We put a lot of pressure on people." St. Louis outshot Edmonton 14-11 over the final 20 minutes, peppering goalie Ben Scrivens from start to finish. "They capitalized on their scoring chances," Scrivens said. "But I needed to make more saves than I did." The Oilers appeared to have gained the momentum with Frasers tying goal. "I dont care how good they are, we were able to play with them for two periods," Edmonton coach Dallas Eakins said. "We certainly should be able to do it for another 20 more minutes." Notes: St. Louis D Barret Jackman left the game briefly late in the second period after colliding with Jesse Joensuu. Jackman returned for the third period. ...The Oilers have used six goalies this season. ... Ten of the Blues last 13 games have been decided by one goal. ... Edmonton C Sam Gagner had a five-game points streak snapped. ... The Oilers are 7-2-3 in their last 12 games, their best stretch since going 8-3 at the start of the 2011-12 season. ... Oshies two assists give him a career-high 36 this season. ' ' '