As Sheffield United prepare to face Everton tomorrow in the final home match of 2020, VitalBlades delves into the archives to pick out a fixture played between the Blades and the Toffees on Christmas Day.
Sheffield United and Everton have met 133 times before today in all competitions. Our opponents have the better hand having won 54 of those fixtures, whilst United have won 48 (drawn 31). The two teams have never before met on Boxing Day, however, they have once gone toe-to-toe with one another only once on Christmas Day.
The last time that Sheffield United play on Christmas Day was in 1959 when the Blades beat Grimsby Town 2-1 at Bramall Lane. Doc Pace and a Graham Shaw penalty helped settle the scores that day.
As The Blades entertain Everton tomorrow in the Premier League, we have dug up a former report, found on the unofficial Everton website Blue Correspondent, and originally published in the Liverpool Echo. The game was played on Christmas Day 120 years ago, saw the Blades beat Everton 2-1 at Bramall Lane – a similar scoreline, in favour of the Blades, would go down nicely indeed.
SHEFFIELD UNITED 2 EVERTON 1
Football League Division One
Tuesday, 25th December 1900
For the first time in the history of the Everton Football club, the team had to forge afield on Christmas Day and the engagement with the Sheffield united eleven necessitated a journey to the cutlery town on Monday. The directorate decided upon a further change and brought in Sharp to partner Taylor with Proudfoot in the centre; while the home side were at their usual strength. The players at eleven o’clock lined up as follows: – Everton: – Muir, goal Balmer and Watson backs, Wolstenholmes Booth, and Abbott, halfbacks Sharp, Taylor, Proudfoot, Settle (captain), and Turner forwards. Sheffield United: – Foulkers, goals, Thickett, and Boyle backs Beers, Wilkinson, and Needham (captain), halfbacks Bennett, Gilhooty, Almond, Hedley, and Lipsham forwards. Settle lost the toss, and on Proudfoot kicking off against a cross breeze the opening play was slightly in favour of the United, but after ten minutes play the visitors began to feel their feet, and showed that it would require the best efforts of the United to stare off defeat. Turner and Settle particularly, on the left, were very aggressive, while Proudfoot was distributing the work in a manner that boded well for the success of his side. Following a well worked out plan of attack. A corner was forced off Boyle, and this being taken by Sharp, Taylor headed the ball on to Settle, who defeated Foulkes with a magnificent shot.
Play continued favourable to the visitors, but misfortune came as the result of a miskick by Booth, which ended in an opening being made for Hedley, who put the ball to Lipsham, and in turn Bennett equailsed. From this to the interval, Everton were greatly in evidence, but could not take the lead. On changing ends, the visitors at once looked like forging ahead, and the forwards playing a magnificent game Taylor is particular being most prominent in attack. The van was however, opposed to a stubborn defence, and for quite 20 minutes the home side were not within range of Muir. Foulkes had plenty of work in hand, and by dint of kicking out, and clever saves by the custodian, the home line were repeatedly saved from downfall. During one of the aggressive onslaughts on the United goal. Thickett fsted the ball from Turner, but the referee apparently had not seen the infringement, and did not upheld a strong claim for a penalty. The play still favoured the visitors, but a break away by the United found Muir at fault in the last two minutes the game Almond scored an easy goal. There could be no question as to, which was the superior team for on all hands the visitors were freely admitted to have given one of the finest displays that have been witnessed at Bramell lane, this season. That the United obtained full points was more Everton’s misfortunate than their fault, for from start to finish they set a terrific pace and played excellent football and deserved success.