Fixture Release Date

[andrewesq]

Finally its here, 1pm on Friday - Cant wait !
Does anyone have a preference for who comes first/last game of season !?

 

[Sparky]

I'm not bothered who we play but would be nice to be at home first and last game of the season if possible.

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

Home game or if away then a local derby.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

The Christmas matches will be interesting, as you play the same team home and away in the National League. My guess would be Southport, Altrincham or Macclesfield.

 

[andrewesq]

I forgot about the Christmas matches that is a bit of a non league special !!

 

[Boz]

Would hope for a gentle opener, not away to one of the stronger sides. Prefer to end with a home game. I'm not that keen on the reverse fixture over Christmas and hope if it's Southport we're home on Boxing Day.

 

[Ian]

I'm with Boz on the gentle opener as with all the changes to the squad it's going to take a few matches to start gelling.

 

[Boz]

I don't think we've done too badly in terms of the start. Beginning with Woking at home, then another 5 games in August, all against sides who are unlikely to be top five contenders, by the end of the month, there should be a good indication of our prospects. Rovers do need to start brightly, as the season end has a trip to Eastleigh sandwiched between homes against Wrexham and Grimsby, all sides likely to be at least play-off contenders and making a very tough end to the season.

Southport home and away are midweek, as is Wrexham away, the former means much more hassle for me than a weekend game. The Christmas back-to-back is Macclesfield, with Altrincham thrown in between.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

I think the fixtures are fairly kind to us, with home games to start and end the season and two out of the three Christmas games at Prenton Park. It is disappointing that the Wrexham and Southport aways are midweek, particularly the latter which would have been a good day out.

The opener against Woking will be a tough test. They are one of the bigger clubs and only just missed out on the play offs last season. The Gateshead game which follows could also be tough, but as Boz says, we have a decent run of fixtures thereafter and hopefully we can make a strong start.

The final game of the season against Grimsby pits the two favourites with the bookies against each other and, who knows, might be a title decider. I get the feeling that fixture did not just come randomly out of the National League computer........

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

As RLC says, the first two games will be tough but I'm not expecting any game to be easy as the less well known teams (to put it politely) will treat their games with Rovers as their own cup finals. The start to the season will be hectic - eight games or 15% of the season in the first month. As Boz says, by the end of August we should know if we are competing or struggling. But this is the first year for a long time where we've had virtually the complete squad signed up by the first week of July and all of them are "our" players not loanees. I'm expecting Gary to have melded the team together well, so I'll be surprised if we are not in at least the top third of the table.

A final thought. Mark Palios said he wanted to play a few home games on a Friday. Not a single game is being played then (even on Good Friday), which is a shame.

 

[Boz]

I think some games could get moved to Friday for televising and Rovers as one of the bigger names(feels a bit strange typing that) are likely to feature in a few of these, so expect there will be Friday football at PP. There may also be scope for us to get one or two games moved by agreement to Friday.

Re RLCs point about our last game, recall reading that fixtures weren't generated by computer but manually in the National League.