The fixture list for the new season was announced this morning, and Sky TV have got their talons into it already. Our opening game is at 12.30 at home to Portsmouth, as inconvenient as that is for the away fans travelling up from the south coast.
The official site says that Leeds are unbeaten in our last four games against Pompey, and that Danny Pugh scored the only goal when we last met in 2011. After that they were relegated twice in the midst of financial problems (sounds familiar) but they are now on the way back under the astute management of John Mousinho, and the 97 points they amassed last season show they can’t be taken lightly.
And we then have two tricky away games against WBA and Sheffield Wednesday, with the Owls already getting over-excited about having their cup final so early in the season. And a few of our away trips will be difficult for other reasons, as three of our four non-holiday midweek trips will be to places some distance from Leeds.
Which is probably deliberate, as the clubs prefer it this way, as it reduces their hotel bills overall, as there will be more Saturday games at places where the return trip can be done in one day. Never mind the travelling fans, although the League will no doubt point out that under the new Sky contract every one of our midweek games will be televised live.
I’m not convinced it’s a great idea to send us to Millwall on bonfire night, given the number of pyrotechnics that will be freely available in the shops around that time, although the fans are pretty well segregated these days at the New Den. And it’s possible that the police might object to the timing of this fixture anyway, on a night when their resources might be needed elsewhere.
The Christmas holiday games look a bit more reasonable, with a relatively short trip to Stoke on Boxing Day, then a visit to Derby on the last Sunday of the year. The run in to the end of the season looks a bit kinder than the start, which might come in handy if we are staggering towards the finish line once again.
The penultimate away game will be our first ever visit to Oxford’s Kassam stadium on Good Friday, and after home games with Stoke and Bristol City, we end the regular season down in Plymouth. Which is perhaps another surprising bit of scheduling, giving us a potentially vital game by the seaside on the May Bank Holiday weekend.
I think that scenario might have caused a bit of bother once before, when the distance to the south coast meant that a lot of fans went down the night before. And the maximum away allocation is a mere 2,022, which could well be far fewer than the number of Leeds fans who will want to see the game.
For contractual reasons we are not allowed to publish the full fixture list, but you can find it here on the club’s official website.. Though of course these are subject to change, and as we continue to produce Sky’s biggest viewing figures in this division, nothing is more inevitable than having them move plenty of our games to whatever date and time they feel like broadcasting them. Enjoy!