Re: fixtures
LoveCity said:
rickmcfc said:
LoveCity said:
Some Hammers on Twitter reckon the fixtures have already been drawn and that they have us at the Etihad on the opening day.
Really? How could they possibly know?
That's what I was wondering, they reckon fixtures are done before the day they're announced so I suppose there could be fixture leaks. We'll know at 9am if they are wrong anyway.
The fixtures were given to the clubs and police 2 weeks ago. When I was on the Football Supporters' Federation committee, one of our committee members was on the Football Fixtures Panel.
He said they would be given to clubs 2 weeks in advance. Clubs / police then have so many days to ask for changes to be made. For eg, Nottingham Police would prefer both teams away during the Goose Fair.
Chester (when in the league) police would say the same when a race meeting was on.
Merseyside police want a 'quiet' game when Aintree is on and the London police wont have Liverpool and United down there on the same day (a lot easier to manage now games are played Sunday / Monday's too, of course).
Then United prefer to be at home the nearest game to Feb 6th and Liverpool the same with April 15th and if these haven't fallen as they wish, they can request a change.
When making these changes, the League has to check carefully as no one club is to be scheduled to play more than 2 league games away from home consecutively.
Interestingly, supporters would complain about long midweek journeys - yet the clubs actually wanted them!
If Carlisle are playing a London team on a Saturday at 3pm, they would have to travel Friday and stay in a hotel. Yet the same game for a midweek game, they would leave early in the morning and save on hotel fees!