While there are no festive fixtures this year for the Wire, historically the Christmas period for the club and Rugby League had a hectic schedule full of key dates in the diary.

During the years immediately after the Second World War, Boxing Day was usually reserved for a match against Leigh with Widnes being our regular Christmas Day opponents.

Thirteen games were contested with Leigh either at Wilderspool, Wire winning seven with one drawn. Sunday play wasn’t allowed in those days, of course, and so the matches in 1948 and 1954 had to be deferred until the 27^thand likewise a year later when Widnes were entertained on Boxing Day because Christmas Day occurred on the Sunday.

Christmas was a really hectic time for the players at that time, having to turn out in successive days when they weren’t doing their day job.

When Warrington played at Rochdale’s Athletic grounds on the first post-war Boxing Day it was Warrington’s sixth game that month with another to come.

The 1947 game at Leigh, won 29-0, was Wire’s third match in as many days.

Wire’s international scrum half Gerry Helme played in every Boxing Day game to 1957, Bob Ryan only missed one match in that period because of an injury and Brian Bevan appeared in all of the games from 1946 until 1960 – midway through his penultimate season with us. Brian touched down 10 times in Boxing Day fixtures with three against Liverpool Stanley in his first season.

Remarkably only five scheduled games were lost to the weather – in 1956 and 1961 both scheduled against Leigh, 1962 (when a big freeze meant that we played only one game between then and March and Bramley should have visited Wilderspool because Leigh had been relegated), 1964 when Salford should have been our opponents and 1965 when Leigh would have again been faced on the 27^th.

Christmas 1952 was a busy time for the directors as well as the players for they were negotiating with the Widnes board to sign international forward Danny Naughton, brother of our captain, Ally, and he became a Wire on New Year’s Eve.

Over the holidays of 1953-4 Wire defeated neighbours Widnes, Leigh, Wigan and St Helens in successive games to go top of the table. The 1954 win against Leigh was the 19^th league victory in succession, Wigan ending our great run on New Year’s Day.

The biggest win over Leigh came in 1958 when Wire won 35-13 despite losing Harry Major for most of the match. There was an equally heroic performance a year later when a Wire side full of reserves won 12-10 at what had become Hilton Park.

The Wire at Christmas