I always find New Fixture day far more exciting than it should be. I mean, it’s just a timetable. But for me it makes me as excited as a child at Christmas. 

I know we are just over a month from our last game of last season, but it feels like an eternity ago.  The announcement today means we are just two short months from it all kicking off again, with all of the drama, excitement and the eventual heartbreak and disappointment it will bring with it. It also seems to finalise last season for me too. For the last few weeks I’ve been in a quandary as to what to call the season just gone. Was it last season? Or still this season? And when does the forth coming season become this season? After 10am and the fixtures come out I don’t have to stumble around anymore and the 2010/11 season will become ‘this’ season.

Then I get the astonishment of checking the fixtures themselves. Who’ve we got first game? Are we at home? What about the last game? How’s the run in? Are we at home boxing day? Checking for those magical night games at the cottage. And how many will I miss?? The panic as you check to see if there’s a clash between a home match and that wedding your cousin you don’t really like has organised for mid September, or when your mate, who’s inconsiderate enough to have a birthday in March, has organised a trip away. Or if my holiday clashes with any games?

Don’t go expecting any work from me for the lions share of the day today. I’ll be busy pressing F5 on the club website from 9:55 this morning and then analysing the fixtures and knocking myself up a fixture poster for the front of my fridge. Sooner they make New Fixture Thursday a bank holiday, the better in my opinion!!