And so the fixtures for Coventry City’s first season in the third tier of English football since the 1960’s have been announced.
The opening day of the season are traditionally one of the biggest days of the season for attendances or number of tickets sold in CCFC’s case and the Sky Blues, who have lost in the region of £5m thanks a plethora of reasons contriving to get the club relegated to League One, have had to forfeit this money spinner due to the late hand-over of the Ricoh Arena (City Of Coventry Stadium) which is staging matches in the Men’s and Women’s Olympic Tournaments.
Ok, the first home game is against a side in Sheffield United who will bring the biggest support to the Ricoh Arena out of any other team in the division but playing it on a Tuesday night, will not attract the same number of tickets sold, that a Saturday game would have done.
However, it does get one of the long hauls out of the way with the trip to Yeovil Town on a Saturday rather than in midweek.
Games at home to Shrewsbury Town on New Years Day and Walsall away on Easter Monday are sensible and a Boxing Day trip to Stevenage is not that bad and a lot better than trips to Swansea and Cardiff in recent seasons.
Thankfully, long treks to Hartlepool and Carlisle have both been scheduled for Saturdays and although midweek trips to Colchester and AFC Bournemouth which rules out the weekend away many were looking forward to, won’t be relished, the fixture list as it stands at this moment in time could have been a lot worse.