A winter sun was shining brightly on the day after Boxing Day in 1971 as Jim Barron collected the ball and rolled it to Tommy Gemmell, waiting outside the left-hand edge of the penalty area. The Scottish full-back, newly arrived from Celtic, pushed it a few yards upfield to Ian Storey-Moore, who set off on a winding 70-yard run that took him through and past the entire Arsenal defence – Pat Rice, Peter Simpson, Bob McNab and Frank McLintock – and into a one-on-one against the goalkeeper. When Bob Wilson was left grasping at thin air, delirium ensued on the terraces.
Forget the feats of Maradona or Messi, of Bergkamp or Zidane. To the survivors of the 42,750 present at the City Ground that day, Storey-Moore's goal for Nottingham Forest remains beyond compare, its outlines more vivid in the memory for being set amid the special atmosphere of an English football ground during the holiday programme.
These are special occasions, the matches scheduled between Christmas and new year. Less special than they used to be, perhaps, because of the very different nature of the modern fixture list, with its Super Sundays and packed midweeks and seemingly random kick-off times.
On paper this year's sequence of matches, beginning on Saturday and ending on 2 January, is not particularly mouth-watering, with Manchester United versus West Bromwich on the 29th and Everton v Chelsea the following day being perhaps the most enticing. But it is still something to be savoured, not least because the holiday atmosphere is likely to enliven even the most prosaic fixtures and the sudden rush of matches means that a season's fortunes may be reshaped in the space of less than a fortnight.
No film of Storey-Moore's goal exists, which some might say serves only to enhance the memory of its grandeur. In today's very different world it would be captured by a dozen cameras. A different world, too, in that after a 70-yard run the scorer would have been given a chance to get his breath back. Forty years later players are not permitted to rest. They train to run further and faster, without pause.
But they still get tired, and the Christmas programme is often held up as the reason why fatigue sets in towards the end of a long and unrelieved season, a phenomenon that is harshly exposed when it prejudices the ability of the top players to produce their best form at a summer tournament. Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello both sought to highlight the absence of a winter break as a factor contributing to England's limp performances in World Cups and European Championships.
According to Brendan Rodgers, tiredness is already affecting Raheem Sterling. Since the start of the season the teenage winger has made 17 starts and eight appearances as a substitute for Liverpool's first team, plus one start for Roy Hodgson's England. During that time he has celebrated his 18th birthday and listened to the beginnings of a debate over whether he should be included in Stuart Pearce's squad for the finals of the European Under-21 Championship in Israel next summer.
That argument will grow louder in the coming months, with the example of Michael Owen held up as the cautionary tale of a prodigy whose gifts encouraged his club and national managers to select him without a break throughout his adolescence, provoking the physical problems that shortened his effective career. On the other side of the argument, Spain demonstrate the benefit of giving talented young players as much experience as possible of international tournaments, and watching them grow together.
Yet the Christmas and new year programme is a precious component of the English season, not to be cast lightly aside. It remains arduous, certainly, but even for those teams unable to afford the use of private jets to mitigate the rigours of the longer trips, coach travel is far more comfortable than it once was.
For the future, one idea might be to keep the Christmas schedule but to exclude all players below the age of 21 from participation in those four fixtures. That, however, would unfairly penalise clubs – like Liverpool or Aston Villa – intent on rebuilding their fortunes by putting their faith in youth.
Here's a better suggestion: have a 10-day break not at Christmas but at the beginning of January. Then the holiday programme would feel like a climax to the first half of the season, the players would find it easier to book flights and hotels for their breaks in Dubai, the resumption would be eagerly awaited and no England manager would ever be able to complain again.
Curious case of Kolarov and a flag
The altercation between Aleksandar Kolarov and a couple of fans waving an Albanian flag at St James' Park on Saturday surely breaks new ground in English football. The incident was immediately pigeonholed as an outbreak of "racism", which may fit the current narrative but is a less than adequate way of describing a disagreement that goes back more than 600 years.
The Manchester City full-back is a Serb, which suggests that the provocative waving of the Albanian flag must have been a reference to the argument over Kosovo, a region largely populated by ethnic Albanians and whose independence, although recognised by many countries, remains passionately contested by Serbs. Their emotional attachment to the region goes back to 1389 and the defeat at the hands of Ottoman invaders in the Battle of Kosovo, an event crucial to their national identity.
On the eve of battle the Serbian leader, Prince Lazar, issued a summons in words that became known as the Kosovo Curse: "Whoever is a Serb and of Serb birth, And of Serb blood and heritage, And comes not to fight at Kosovo, May he never have progeny born from love, Neither son nor daughter! May nothing grow that his hand sows …" And so on. Should this one get as far as the FA's disciplinary committee, it may need to call the United Nations.
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