Boxing Day football used to be a big part of Christmas for me.

After the fun and festivities of Christmas Day, it was nice to get out on Boxing Day away from the family for a few hours and escape into football.

Sadly, due to TV coverage, we rarely get a Boxing Day game anymore. And that is not actually a bad thing.

Over the Christmas period, the rail companies use the 4 days of weekend and bank holidays to have huge shut downs on their network, and smash out some engineering work for 24 hours a day. At this time of year I always see casual commuters moaning, but it really is the best time for a shut down with rail users at its lowest.

But it does make it a nightmare for those going football. Especially, if like me, you have spent Christmas Day with family outside of London.

A few years ago we had Southampton away on Boxing Day. It already would have been two trains for me to get into London from Suffolk, a train across London and then down to Southampton.

The two trains into London were both cancelled, so that would have been 2 replacement bus services. The Jubilee Line was open, but then there were no trains out of Waterloo. So it would have needed 3 replacement buses and a train, about a 6 hour journey.

Some will say “just drive”, but that would have been a 3 and a half hour journey off the abck of Christmas Day. No thanks.

I ended up not going to the game, and it would be the only one of 38 I missed that season. Instead I stayed an extra day with the family, watched the game in the local, and had some lovely cold meat and mash for dinner!

It also made me realise that there is more to life than football.

That season I was obsessed about doing 38 games. I had missed family birthdays and BBQs to go football. My whole life revolved around getting myself to the game. I had been like it for a few seasons but in 2015 I was more obsessed than ever. That was probably the height of my addiction.

Since that Boxing Day, I decided I would no longer be obsessed about trying to do the 38 game season. I would no longer put football before family.

Yes, I still try and time my family visits around international breaks, but I am now more open to missing games for big events. And I will still do 25+ league games this season.

As I sit here in the garden with a Boxing Day coffee, I wonder what my decision would have been had the West Ham game been at noon today? Would I have already have left my family, jumping on those replacement buses down to Stratford for the game?

Sky have taken that decision out of my hands. But then I am buzzing for Thursday. It can not come soon enough.

Hope you all had a Christmas Day. Spend as much time as you can with your family. Football will always be there.

Keenos