Pompey fans will be in for the long haul up to the Riverside Stadium as the opening day Championship fixture of the 2011/2012 campaign will take place at Middlesbrough.
The first home league game of the season is a south coast derby against Brighton but THE south coast derby with Southampton will take place at Fratton Park on December 17th.
The return game at St. Mary's has originally been planned to take place on Easter Saturday (April 7th) with Millwall to come two days later on Easter Monday.
Pompey will also play the Lions at The Den on Boxing Day in a reverse of last year's festive fixture. Blues fans will have to wait a while before visiting Brighton's new Amex Stadium, with the fixture scheduled for March 10th.
The fixture list hasn't been too kind to us in terms of the midweek games. Both the home and away matches with Reading, Crystal Palace, Peterborough, Birmingham and Ipswich are all due to take place on a Tuesday. The latter three are hardly local are they?
Once again, Portsmouth will end the season away from home with a trip to Nottingham Forest's City Ground on Saturday, April 28th. The final home game of the campaign on April 21st against Derby.
Of course, these fixtures are subject to change and there is no way Hampshire Police will allow the games against Saints to be played at a 3pm on Saturday. Expect them to be moved to midday on the Saturday or Sunday. Given the weather there may be a possibility that the Fratton fixture may be moved into 2012!
Whatever happens, I'm happy that we will have plenty of time to build a squad before we play them. I'm not so happy at having to travel hundreds of miles on the first day to one of the worst grounds in the league, but I suppose it gets it out of the way early on.
Bring on the 2011/2012 season! (Once we finally have a decent sized squad, of course...)