Because of the proximity of Christmas and New Year, and because of the busy schedule in which four games were often crammed in less than 10 days, many football players throughout history used to skip matches on Boxing Day.
Kevin Nolan, the England midfielder who spent most of his career at Bolton and later played for Newcastle and West Ham, had a five-year run of suspensions in December. Except for the first case, all the others fell around Christmas and New Year.
After the fifth year, in 2013, Nolan assured West Ham fans that he was not doing it on purpose and that he would spend Christmas training on the pitch while the rest of the squad had time off.
But the record holder is still Lee Bowyer, a midfielder who in the 2000s missed as many as eight games on Boxing Day – seven due to suspensions due to accumulated yellow cards and one due to a direct red, reports Index.hr.
During that period, Bowyer played for Leeds, Newcastle and West Ham, and he also claimed that everything was just a matter of coincidence, in fact that it was natural for hearty players like him to reach the limit of yellow cards in that part of the season.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, just to be free for Boxing Day. I racked up 99 bookings in 18 years, the law of big numbers says I’ll miss a few. I’ve always played on the edge. Even that red card, it made me miss the New Year’s game , I certainly didn’t plan it. I just wasn’t lucky,” Bowyer explained to former teammate Jermaine Jenas.
Lee Bowyer missed 8 games on Boxing Day during his career
He’s adamant he didn’t do it on purpose pic.twitter.com/Q5N7365t4R
— COPA90 (@Copa90) December 26, 2018
(Vijesti.ba)
