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THis season Burnley are away from home on two consecutive saturdays, following the Carling cup 2nd round. Potentially this could mean 3 consecutive away games for the clarets. I am interested to know if there is a reason for this.

Us (Leeds) have Carlisle on the Tuesday then Gillingham on the Saturday, both away, I'm sure you could of switched a few fixtures around to avoid this as this is going to annoy away travelling fans

Also what were some of the rules that Leeds handed in, due to the past our fans have a bad reputation although it isn't like that anymore but it's hard to get rid of a reputation, so what kind of matches were requested to be changed by the police and also the club

I honestly never thought that such a subject could have been so interesting. Maybe it makes me very boring and that it means I would make a good librarian?

Cheers to Glenn Thompson for his additional comments. An excellent blog subject, one of the best for a while on the ´óÏó´«Ã½.

no complaints really, fixtures don't matter where or when, or with who, if your team is good enough to win then they can, for example arsenal, they play MAN U chelsea and liverpool in the same two weeks between jan/feb, but if there good enough they'll win all three and maybe the league, but i doubt it.. this year its liverpool all the way.

COME ON LIVERPOOL!

Why the hell are the Boro away at Plymouth on a Monday night for a near 500mile round trip, when the club asked for it to be on a Saturday? Also why so many midweek away games, especially Blackpool when we would of took thousands their?

I'm with the Boro fan above on this - Its completely unfair on the away team to organise these fixtures for midweek. Not many fans can afford to take time off work for these fixtures. The lack of away fans gives the home team an even bigger advantage.

Sunderland have AGAIN (3 seasons on the trot I think now) got Portsmouth away midweek. Thats a 669 mile round trip on a Tuesday night, last season was a Monday night. Its the longest trip in the Premiership.

If the computer is so clever why does this happen over and over again. Is it a Portsmouth supporter?

I'd love to hear Glenn Thompsons views on this......

It seems that the people arranging the English football fixtures enjoy problems. In Spain the second half of the season is simply a reverse of the first half. Why do you make life so complicated?

In answer to number 9, We have 92 proffesional league clubs to cater for.

Just checked and Boro-Plymouth is a 750+mile rund trip. Complete joke to have it on a monday night.

So thats about a 7 hour drive each way for you for Plymouth - 9 hours on a coach. If you leave at final whistle and drive all night you will just make it to work the next morning!

I know the computer has no sense of distance but unless the people who check the fixtures have some kind of sick sense of humour surely this shouldn't happen.

I notice that Sunderland vs Portsmouth and Boro vs Plymouth are both on a Saturday - at least if the return legs were wid-week too it would even it up.

Mixed feelings about suoer whites fixtures. Would have liked derby matches with Huddersfield and Oldham to have been more spaced out.Pleased with Christmas fixtures not too far to travel. Looks like tough run in at end of season but we will do it.

Really interesting insight and arguments why the H/A/H/A sequence is difficult. However I still believe the core element should be the league games are on a H/A/H/A basis and no team having both start of and end of season home games. Inequality has set in immediately, everything else should revolve around that.
Of course, one of the complications is the money aspect, I understand clubs not wanting to lose out, maybe a fairer slice of the cake for the lower division clubs would ease the problem.

Surely a system can also be found to improve the alternation so that sides dont get a monopoly on the start/end/boxing day dates, there really is no excuse for that.

How the list makes up after that, yes there will be complications but please at least have some of the basics done as even handedly as possible.

Glenn, I think you guys maybe worry too much about the foundation being a H/A/H/A sequence, only to be broken where essential. Sure it's a good idea early in the season, as a league-levelling device (as is, even more importantly, not having to face all the top sides in quick succession). But after that, it makes practially no difference if you break the H/A/H/A pattern -- throw in as many A/A and H/H fortnights (or worse) as you need, if it helps you avoid other problems.

And as for the ludicrous Monday night round trips -- Monday night games should never ever involve travelling the length of the country. (There's a "foundation rule" for you.)

Amanda

Has everyone missed the point of this blog?
Obviously, I'm disappointed with some of my team's fixtures, for one reason or another, but at least now I can see that the job of the fixture compilers is a hard one, and that they've done the absolute best they can. If there are a few fixtures you're not happy about, console yourself with the information that everyone involved (including your club) have tried their best to make it as perfect as possible for all of us. For every dodgy decision, there must've been a damn good reason.

Is there any other major league that doesn't just have a simple system of playing one round of matches, then reversing them for the second half of the season? So far as I recall, Spain, Germany, Italy, France and the Czech Republic all have two half-seasons. Presumably they have just as many other considerations as we have, so why have we complicated matters so much? Some countries even televise the fixture draw so everyone can see it's above board.
And I agree that there is something perverse about sending Sunderland to Portsmouth midweek yet again.

And you wonder why we antipodeans call you whinging POM's, try supporting your team at away fixtures when you've trips of 2710miles one way melbourne/townsville or 3321miles wellington/perth and those aren't one off distances either.

As far as police involvement goes, that hasn't happened yet, they get this list at the same time we do. Where a Force has to cover two or three teams at a time, then they are amongst the "paired clubs" that don't play at home the same weekend. However there is now a period where external forces can ask that games be played in midweek for the reasons you state. the matches must be within the weekend, however the weekend now runs from thursday to tuesday

Can anyone explain why Newcastle's midweek home fixtures are always on a Wednesday when almost everyone else's are on a Tuesday?
Surely can't be anything to do with TV as those games haven't been chosen yet...

As a non supporter of the 2 teams involved..... how can it justify making Southampton travel to Hartlepool on a Tuesday night. Also, why... on a bank holiday Monday.. when the traffic is always bad anyway... do my team (Stockport) ave a long trip to Norwich ? Surley we could ave played there on a Saturday... and maybe gone to somewhere miles closer that day...... I know this applies to lots of clubs..... but geez.......

The only thing I think you didn't mention was who exactly sets these "compilation rules"? To be honest I think you deserve a medal or at the very least free aspirin, because with 92 clubs all (presumably) handing in 'special requests' you must get one heck of a headache.

I can't believe people are actually posting here and complaining! Yes, of course some of the fixtures appear daft, but as both blog articles point out, there are so many complications and factors to take into account that there are always going to be people who are not happy. As mentioned in the first blog, because of the interconnectedness of perameters, swapping just one fixture could lead to rearranging more than half of the other fixtures to accommodate the change!

As for why we can't simply have half-seasons like other countries, surely this is due to the numerous complications mentioned being compounded by the fact that there are 92 clubs and far far more supporters to consider than in other countries.

I'm sure it can seem at times like it's always *your* club that misses out because it has had away matches at the end of the last 3 seasons, or is always away on boxing day... but, unfortunately, half the teams have to be away on any given date, teams have to make their long distance journies at some point in the season, as well as their local journies - and really people just have to like it or lump it - and stop whinging and being self-centred!

And this is from an Exeter fan, supprting one of the teams far out on a geographical limb, where in recent seasons we've had 700 mile round trips in the Conference; our 'most local' derbies had been Hereford and Aldershot; and we (along with Plymouth, Torquay and Carlisle) regularly and by a considerable margin top the 'distance travelled' charts for our respective leagues.

I'm sure Southampton fans are just glad they're (probably) starting the season at all - and don't really care when they go where... likewise, Plymouth fans are happy they're in the Championship and facing a long trip to Middlesboro rather than a short trip up the A38 in League 1 ;-)

A closer look at the Premier League fixtures as a whole, without a team 'prejudice' reveals that they are actually blocked together. Bear with me on this!: Games 1-4 and Boxing day (game 19 - half way through the season) are blocked. By blocked I mean that a group of ten teams all play either home or away at the same time. For example, in the first four games Aston Villa, Blackburn, Bolton, Chelsea, Everton, Man Utd, Portsmouth, Stoke, Tottenham and Wolves all have the same home and away sequence (HAAH). They cannot therefore play each other inside a 'block'.
The second half starts on December 28th with the same five games' reverse fixtures but in a slightly different order (3,1,2,19,4). Games 5,6,7,8 are actually the reverse of the season run-in (games 35-38 are the reverse fixtures of games 6,5,8,7). The pattern goes on - There's a block of 5, one of 4, two of 2 and one of 6 = 19 games per half-season). If you start the season AHHA (as half the teams do) your six games from Boxing Day go HAHAAH. The other 10 teams matches are exactly the opposite. Each 'block' starts afresh after some pairs swap places with each other and move from one 'side' of the fixture list to the other.
The result of this is that the basic allocation of games is not random but cleverly thought out! For all of you complaining that your first game is away, think of this. This blocking means:
First game away = second game home (midweek and possibly the only scheduled midweek match where you won't have to dress like John Motson in a snowstorm), Boxing Day home (turkey curry and a pint then off to the match), December 28 away (a well earned chance to get away from the family) and last week of January midweek away. The December and February midweeks will be one home and one away - this is not related to the first match.
As for pairings of teams that don't play at home on the same day, many are obvious, I suspect the latter ones are just for the internal logic of the fixture program:
Aston Villa - Birmingham
Blackburn - Burnley
Chelsea - Fulham
Everton - Liverpool
Man Utd - Man City
Tottenham - Arsenal
Bolton - Wigan
Portsmouth - Hull
Wolverhampton - Sunderland
Stoke - West Ham
As for the (valid) concerns about having to travel midweek to some distant venue, the four midweeks, (three in the depths of winter), and the two Christmas fixture mean that three teams will each have to travel to Sunderland or Portsmouth for a late/unusual fixture. It might seem sensible to many that Sunderland should entertain Hull and a couple of the Lancastrian teams whilst Portsmouth enjoys the company of Chelsea and Fulham but, (a) I suspect that the knock-on effects would be large on the entire list, which is very rule bound, (as we know) and, (b) it just doesn't seem to me very fair on these teams who might, year after year, have to make this same midweek trek, (or, as others have written, not be able to because of work/family commitments).
And then of course the TV men get involved...

what has happened to local derbys on boxing day and bank holidays
very little transport available , so games should be against the nearest teams
Also on this subject see some people going on about travel in mid week
this then must put an end to celtic and rangers joining the prem or any other english league
We play Exeter 1st game they must think its xmas long trip out of the way and probebly the game the wanted 1st anyway

My sympathies go to Carlisle United fans wo have the "very short trip" to ExeterCity to cope with on Boxing Day !!!! That is just utterly shambolic to be put out as a fixture. Also my team MK Dons have finally managed to be given a HOME game on BOXING DAY. It should not matter where and in what sequence you play on a Saturday, but I agree with most of the comments made so far that midweek games should always be kept to a maximum travelling distance of say 100 miles (each way).

Can anyone explain why Newcastle's midweek home fixtures are always on a Wednesday when almost everyone else's are on a Tuesday?

Re: No.25

Since when did Carlisle have two games to play on Boxing Day? I think you'll find that they're actually (for the second season running) at home to my team Huddersfield.