Survival Sunday

Survival Sunday is a term used to refer to final day coverage of the Premier League in England. The phrase is primarily used by Sky Sports, when relegation places are still to be decided, and is used on all the adverts for the end of season football coverage, a day when all the week's ten matches are scheduled for the same window of time.

The Fox Sports cable group in the United States also used the branding for the same coverage in 2012, when nine of that day's matches were carried across Fox's cable networks (including those that are not normally devoted to mainstream sports, let alone sports at all), with the exception of the Manchester City v. Queens Park Rangers, which was shown on rival network ESPN (Manchester City would win the title in stoppage time in that match). Current U.S. EPL rightsholder NBC Sports has continued the practice under the branding Championship Sunday. The phrase has since been used by other media to refer to the final matches.

On the final day of the 2004–05 FA Premier League, none of the three sides to be relegated had been decided. Norwich City, Southampton, Crystal Palace and West Bromwich Albion were all separated by just a couple of points going into the final match. It was the first time since the establishment of the Premier League in 1992 that no team was assured of relegation going into the final matchday, and the closest dogfight in the top flight since 1927–28, when 11 teams were separated by a total of two points going into the final matchday, in an era when a win was worth two points instead of today's three. West Brom, who started bottom, needed to beat Portsmouth at The Hawthorns and they won 2–0 thanks to goals from Geoff Horsfield and Kieran Richardson meaning Baggies fans were having to nervously wait for other results. Norwich, who started in pole position, were thumped 6–0 at Fulham and were relegated following a dreadful display. Southampton meanwhile hosted Manchester United and looked like staying up after a John O'Shea own goal but the Irishman set up Darren Fletcher to equalize before Ruud van Nistelrooy headed home to send Harry Redknapp's side down. In the other game Crystal Palace travelled to local rivals Charlton Athletic and after Bryan Hughes gave the Addicks a half time lead, Dougie Freedman equalized within two minutes of coming on as a substitute before winning a penalty which top scorer Andy Johnson converted meaning the Eagles looked like staying up but Jerome Thomas's free kick was headed home by Jonathan Fortune, the game finished 2–2 meaning Iain Dowie's side were relegated. That meant West Brom who started the day bottom became the first team to be bottom at Christmas and stay up, this resulted in the Baggies fans invading The Hawthorns pitch, Portsmouth fans joined in as their local rivals Southampton were relegated, Albion also stayed up with the lowest ever points tally in the Premier League for a surviving team with 34.

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