I was looking forward to today’s fixture announcement as it was my intention to publish the list in full, even though I’m aware that would require me paying some ridiculous license fee to DataCo. Maybe I’ve lost my bottle, but I’m going to stick within the parameters of the law, as I understand it, albeit under protest.

If this is meaningless to you then I’d recommend a quick look at the Wikipedia page for DataCo which explains the nonsense very well. But in a nutshell; 50 years ago the Football League got their panties in a bundle about Littlewoods apparently making money off the back of the fixture list with the Pools (you might need to ask your Grandma what that is kids). They managed to con some judge into agreeing that they held copyright over the fixture list and therefore had the right to license it’s use. This still continues to this day, in fact they now claim the ever-so-trendy “intellectual property” rights.

Yeah, they own copyright to a calendar?!? Can you imagine any other business charging the media to publicise when they will be conducting business?? Think about it, most companies have to actually pay to get that sort of information out. Or think of it like this, what if no media outlets published the fixture lists?? What would the football league do then??

Well, I could rant about this all day long,  I really could, but it’s about time that the football authorities in the UK woke up to the fact that it’s 2009, not 1959. They have to get their heads around the symbiotic relationship that exists between themselves, the paying fans and the media – new and old. Do they really think that the draconian approach they’ve made in cracking down on any of “their” content floating the interwebz saves more business than it loses?? Even drug dealers know you need to give a little bit away free to hook the punters in!!

OK, rant over for now. Under the “Fair use doctrine” I’m fully within my rights to use at least a portion of the fixture list for “purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research”. So there DataCo :p

The opening game, as revealed last night on Twitter by avillafan.com, will be at home to Wigan on Saturday 15th August.  BTW, nice work there fellas.

On Saturday 22nd August we’ll encounter the first of the “Sky Four” with a trip to Anfield.  It’s only the 3rd game of the Premiership season – please no repeat of the drubbing we got there last season!!

Probably the first fixture most of you looked for was the game against that other team in Brum.  Stick the 12th of September in your diary for a trip to The Sty.

Gareth Barry will be coming back to Villa Park with his shiny new team mates on October 3rd – I’m sure he’ll receive a very warm welcome!!

Chelsea will follow Citeh to Villa Park on 17th of October.

Follow that up with another derby game, away to Wolves on October 24th.

The following week we have what will probably be a key fixture for the next few seasons – Everton away on October 31st.

On the 28th of November Spurs come to Villa Park.  Will that be a game against an immediate rival or not??  We shall see.

Into December and it’s a tough month – on the 12th we’ll be at Old Trafford and on Boxing Day at The Emirates – hopefully another Boxing Day Thrilla from the Villa!!

We’ll close out 2009 with Liverpool coming to Villa Park on December 28th.

It’s Arsenal again on January 27th, this time at VP.

Away to Tottenham on February 6th.

After Utd come to town on February 10th, we have a theoretically nice run of Burnley, Hull, Sunderland, Stoke & Wolves.  No disrespect to those teams, they’re more than capable of taking points on their day, but this is the longest stretch of apparently weaker opponents that stand out right now.

There’s 15 points up for grabs right there and they could be absolutely pivotal to the season.  Hull will be the last game before the January transfer window is closed.  The added complication will hopefully be FA Cup and Europa League games from late January through February.  That’s when the wheels fell of the 2008/09 wagon, let’s hope we get it right next year!!

After this crucial patch we’ll take a trip to Stamford Bridge on March 27th.  Will the confidence levels be high or low??

Everton will be coming to Villa Park on April 10th – let’s hope there’s some breathing room between us at that point, i’m not sure I could cope with another six pointer at this stage of the season!!

And then the game you’ve all been waiting for on April 24th when City come back to play A5ton V1lla!!  An absolute possibility of sending them back down!!

The last away game of the season will be at Citeh on May 1st and then Blackburn will close out the 2009/10 season at Villa Park on May 9th.

All fixtures are of course subject to change and Sky TV and Sir Alex Ferguson’s approval.

And to close out I’d like to pass on a tip for any Google Calendar users out there.  For some reason Google has removed the function to search and browse public calendars.  Nothing to do with football fixtures, it’s all calendars, I know not why.  Luckily I’ve been using a very nice Aston Villa fixture calendar for some time and can definitely recommend it.

I’m not sure who created it and updates it, but a “nice work fella” to whoever it is.  They haven’t got the 2009/10 fixtures updated yet, but fair go, it’s still early.  There’s certainly signs that it will indeed be updated. Whoever it is also updates the score after the games too. Nice.

So, if you use Google Calendar, just click on ‘Add’ in the left hand tool bar and choose ‘Add by URL’.  Then just copy & paste the following URL into the box and hit the Add Button.  Simple.

http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/6nm2rcvjs2tuqn3oi40kspf0n4%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic