Huddersfield Town must prepare for season of long-haul

Jun 11 2009 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

LEE CLARK has no worries over Town’s long-haul League I fixture list for next season.

The manager must lead his squad to eight venues more than 200 miles away and on seven further 150 mile-plus trips.

It means overnight stays will be a regular feature, but boss Clark is unconcerned.

“It’s all about preparing properly,” he said. “We established a routine when it came to combining travelling and training towards the end of last season and it served us well.

“We’ll look at tweaking it depending on the way the fixtures fall, and while we’d like a few closer away matches for the sake of our supporters, we just have to get on with it.”

Town’s longest trip will be to Exeter, 273 miles away, while only Leeds, Oldham and Stockport fall into the derby category.

The fixture list will be revealed at 10.00am next Wednesday (June 17), with the draw for the first round of the Carling Cup, which will feature relegated West Brom, coming at 10.00am the previous day.

The season runs from Saturday, August 8 until Saturday, May 8, with the League I play-off final taking place at Wembley on Saturday, May 29.

Town face four games in nine days over Christmas, with full fixtures scheduled for Saturday, December 19, Wednesday 23, Boxing Day (a Saturday) and Monday 28.

The Johnstone’s Paint Trophy gets under way in the week commencing August 31 with the final at Wembley on Sunday, March 28.