Slade star Noddy Holder said Rage Against the Machine’s surprise triumph in the race to be Christmas number one had put the excitement back into the festive charts.

The former frontman, who penned the band’s 1973 Christmas hit Merry Xmas Everybody, said the race for the top spot had become far too predictable with the winner of X Factor claiming it every year since 2005. He spoke out at Walsall’s Banks’s Stadium hours before Killing in the Name was named this week’s biggest selling single over competition winner Joe McElderry.

“Everyone knows what the number one is going to be every year before it has even been released,” said Noddy, aged 63.

“Everyone used to be really excited and eager to see what was going to be number one, but it not that way any more.

“I think the Rage Against the Machine song has at least made it a bit more interesting this year and put the excitement back into it.”

Noddy added: “The singles charts don’t interest me as much any more.

“I like what I like and that is it.”

The Walsall-born singer, who now divides his time between Cheshire and London, took to the pitch at half-time during Saddlers’ draw against Leyton Orient on Saturday.

He wished all the fans at the Banks’s Stadium a Merry Christmas, and declared his support for Walsall’s new adult hospice, which is being built on the site of the former Goscote Hospital.

Noddy added: “I still call the Midlands my home and I love to support things like this, particularly at Christmas.

“The money is there to build the hospice, but they now need to raise funds to equip it and I think it is very important everyone gets behind it.

“Walsall has changed a lot of since I lived here. I grew up on the Beechdale Estate before moving to the Caldmore area. But I come back now and there are some parts of the town I don’t recognise any more because so much as changed.”

Merry Xmas Everybody became the band’s sixth number one and the third Slade single to go straight in at number one in the UK chart.

The song, which remains a festive hit today, has sold several million copies in the UK alone.