BRIGG & BROUGHTON BOXING DAY SPORTS MEMORIES

 

Boxing Days in Brigg & district long ago used to feature some regular sports fixtures.
In the 1980s while most club hockey was still being played on grass pitches, Boxing Day morning friendlies were arranged at Brigg Recreation Ground.
These were inter-club encounters and sometimes a bottle or two of spirits would be taken along to warm the players up at half-time, but chiefly the umpires!
Broughton Cricket Club once hosted a friendly game at Christmas time... in mild weather, as demonstrated by the picture above kindly supplied by Neil Simpson from his club archives. Neil has looked up weather records and thinks it's 1951. Was the match repeated in future years?
There was also an opportunity for local league football decades ago on Boxing Day in the Brigg area, if this happened to be a Saturday.
When the Brigg Branch of the Grimsby Town Supporters' Club ran buses to all home games (between the late 1950s and the early 1980s) plenty of fans would be picked up in Cary Lane and at the stop outside Wrawby Road's cemetery to be whisked off to Blundell Park, if the Mariners had a Boxing Day home fixture.
This bus, provided by Broughton's Daisy company, followed a meandering route via Wrawby, Barnetby, Bigby, Owmby, Searby, Grasby and Keelby - picking up villagers.
One Boxing Day we recall that some supporters had met up in Brigg pubs for a festive ale or three prior to boarding. 

The lads were getting very uncomfortable, with legs firmly crossed, by the time the bus reached the outskirts of Grimsby. We think an emergency stop was requested.
Football League matches involving Grimsby Town and Scunthorpe United used to be played on Christmas Day into the 1950s.
A few other League clubs persisted with this practice into the 1960s, generally involving local derby clashes which meant less travelling for away fans.