Ironically the earlier kickoffs are actually designed to benefit fans travelling a long way as they wont be travelling back so late at night.
I think for a lot of Northern England you will struggle to do this in a day to be honest,
lets look at a 1230 kick off, I think you the latest you would really want to be in London (Euston, Kings Cross etc) is 1130. From Leeds you have 7 trains (if you include the 1138) - Newcastle 6. I know TOCs will try and add more.
The 3pm kick-off it may be 1730 before you get out of the stadium, I would not want to book at train before 1900 really.
So you get 3 trains to Newcastle and Leeds. I suspect Manchester probably does better, not sure about Sheffield and Liverpool.
However, i am sure if you are going to stay overnight the Saturday night is prefereable to the Friday night considering you need to get from work and into London as well.
The WCML however does seem to have more large football clubs than the east (waiting to be flamed by Newcastle, Sunderland and the smoggies
)