From the Hon Sec - Summer Special 3
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25 June 2012
With the Premier and Football League fixtures now in the public domain Dennis Strudwick, the General Manager of The Football Conference is currently working on the Blue Square Bet Premier, North and South fixtures for the 2012/13 season.
By the end of May each club was required to complete a fixtures questionnaire and return it to The Football Conference. This contained a mixture of useful information that will help Dennis complete the list and some requests from individual sides.
Requests are by no means guaranteed, as it is impossible to keep everyone happy, but the things we were able to ask for were:
a) Who we wanted to play on Boxing Day/New Year.
b) A Premier or Football League side we wished our fixtures to be opposite. That is, a professional side who we want to be away when we’re at home and vice-versa. This is why fixtures for semi-professional sides come out later than those for the levels above – the fixture list cannot begin to be completed until the Premier and Football League fixtures are out.
c) A Football Conference side we wanted our fixtures to be opposite.
We also provided a list of the nine shortest journeys we will make in the league this season and the nine longest ones. When the fixture list is compiled they aim to give sides short journeys for Bank Holiday fixtures and midweek games. The longest journeys are ideally (I say ideally because of course we did end up with a midweek trip to Weston-super-Mare!) arranged for what are known as “unencumbered Saturdays” which translates as Saturdays when there is no chance of the game needing to be rearranged due to a side’s progression in The FA Cup or FA Trophy.
Finally:
a) Clubs need to list any dates when their ground is unavailable to host a home game (along with a very good reason as to why!).
b) Any sides who compete in a county cup competition where matches must be played on a specific date need to list those dates to avoid matches being arranged on them, at least for the earlier rounds. As this does not apply for either the Kent or London Senior Cup (with both instead having a date that matches need to be completed by) we did not need to complete this section.
The Blue Square Bet Premier, North and South fixtures are due out on Monday 2 July. We will have them on the website as soon as possible thereafter.
Next up: Player registrations
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