Friday night: Partick Thistle vs. Dundee United – 82.2 miles, 1hr 45mins journey(via Glasgow City Centre too) Boxing day: Aberdeen vs. Motherwell – 152.2 miles, 3hr 16mins journey Tuesday nights: Bournemouth vs. Barnsley – 241.3 miles, 4hr 30mins journey Brighton & Hove Albion vs. Barnsley – 239.2 miles, 4hr, 2mins journey
You're not gonna get 23 ideal away games John I'm afraid, due to all the factors to be considered. All in all we not had it bad last two years.
As I understand it John, they actually put the away games with the long travel times on midweek games by design because they believe fewer fans are likely to make that journey. (if that makes any sense!)
I just think local(ish) games should be midweek and those ridiculous journeys like Bournemouth and Brighton should be Saturdays. Seems like common sense to me.
You get people moaning about the Wednesday game being midweek then etc. Either way you won't get it completely ideal. I agree with Gally saying that they put the really long distance ones midweek because they wouldn't get many making the trip even on a Saturday.
I know that's their reasoning behind it, but how many did we take to Cardiff last season? I'm pretty sure we'd have taken a hell of a lot more had it been a Saturday 3pm kick off.
I can't even stand midweek home games...and as I rarely go to away games I'd happily have all our midweek games away from home!
A few years ago there was a long interview/article with the fixtures guy who said that quite a lot of teams request that long distance games are midweek so that they can save money on hotel costs. A 3pm kick off means having to stay in an hotel the night before the game, a night game means not doing. Any club being especially short of cash can travel down through the day, play the game and come straight home getting back in the middle of the night.
I work in Hampshire during the week & go home to Plymouth at weekends so don't get to many games. So Tuesday night at Bournemouth suits me down to the ground.
Booked flights & hotel for Southampton before catching the train over to Bournemouth and back. Worked out cheaper than most away games