Richard Hercock: New fixture list will get pulses racing and revive glory dreams

No it’s not my birthday, or the unveiling of your team’s third-choice kit, but the launch of next season’s football fixtures for the Football League.

It rivals Christmas Day as that magical moment when anything seems possible. Long-suffering fans have had a few weeks away to recover from the disappointment of last season, yet not enough time to realise those much-publicised new summer signings aren’t any better than last year’s.

Groundhog Day, as that mystery signing with European experience turns out to be a winger from Bury who spent a week camping in Belgium last year.

So come Friday, I like thousands of my fellow fans, will be glued to a computer, pouring over the fixture lists like a giddy teenager.

Back in my youth, you used to have to wait for the fixtures to come out in the local newspaper, or a pull-out in the tabloids, but with modern technology anyone with a modem can jump the gun.

Whatever the fixtures deliver, things can only get better after a season of little cheer in 2011 for Yorkshire clubs. Only Huddersfield Town managed any degree of success when they reached the League One play-off final, only to crash 3-0 against free-scoring Peterborough.

It was a terrific achievement for Lee Clark’s side, although you have to feel some sympathy for being the third best team in the division by a country mile, yet falling foul of the play-off system.

Elsewhere, there was disappointment for Leeds United, Hull City, Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham United, Bradford City and York City as they all fell short of the play-offs to differing degrees.

Doncaster Rovers, Middlesbrough and Barnsley failed to pull up any trees either in the Championship, meaning they embark on a new campaign with hope that they can improve their fortunes.

Yet the biggest losers last season were Sheffield United, after going through a succession of managers resulted in the inevitable outcome, relegation to League One.

The end was predictable as soon as the Blades axed Kevin Blackwell at the start of the season, meaning they were immediately playing catch-up on everyone else who has had a summer of planning and building behind them.

The silver lining for United fans was the success of their youngsters in reaching the final of the FA Youth Cup for their first time in their history.

It means they have some quality kids at Bramall Lane that will be the envy of talent-spotters around the country.

One fixture which will be greeted with some excitement in Sheffield will the Steel City derby, now a third-tier engagement for the first time since 1979-80.

I haven’t missed a Sheffield derby since those old Third Division days, and it is with a touch of regret it has come to this once more.

But just like the south coast duo of Brighton and Southampton ran away with the honours in League One last season, I am expecting both Wednesday and United to be leading the charge for honours next season.

Throw in Huddersfield, who will only get stronger for what they have endured this last 12 months, and promoted Chesterfield and you have the makings of an exciting season ahead for the region.

One of the intriguing aspects of this quartet of clubs is that they are all managed by former midfield players. And of the four, three spent good chunks of their careers learning their craft at Hillsborough.

Gary Megson (Owls), John Sheridan (Chesterfield) and Danny Wilson (Blades) spanned two decades at Wednesday, delivering success under managers like Howard Wilkinson, Ron Atkinson and Trevor Francis.

Ginger-haired Megson was a grafting midfielder, who was part of the well-oiled engine in Wilkinson’s midfield, while Wilson was a terrier-like player who never stopped running.

Neither could match the quality of Sheridan, whose passing game was second to none at Hillsborough in my lifetime, and his popularity peaked in 1991 when he scored the winning goal to beat Manchester United in the League Cup final at Wembley.

He is the only one of that trio who have not managed at Hillsborough, and his return next season in the opposition dug-out will certainly provoke many conversations in S6 pubs about how they would like the former Leeds United midfielder to return and take the Wednesday hot-seat one day.

Another interesting aspect of Chesterfield’s promotion to League One, is the return of former Wednesday chairman Dave Allen.

He made plenty of enemies in his time at Hillsborough, mainly fans unhappy at the way he ran the club.

Now part of the Chesterfield revival, Allen would like nothing more, I am sure, to rub Wednesday’s noses in it next season to prove a point.

As for the Owls, owner Milan Mandaric will expect nothing short of promotion after giving Megson the funds this summer to strengthen at Wednesday. The initial signings of Rob Jones and David Prutton are not headline-grabbing, so will be interesting to see who else will follow.

Across the city at the Lane, it is more a question of who will depart, but in Wilson they have an experienced campaigner, and if United fans can forget his former allegiances to their blue and white neighbours, then I believe he can help stabilise the club and carry out the massive rebuilding job. Much will depend on how quickly Chris Morgan can return from injury, the centre-half probably crucial to United’s promotion chances.

So mark Friday, June 17 down in your diaries. The date the new Football League fixtures are revealed and your chance as a football fan to stand on equal footing with your rivals, as you are allowed to dream of what might be.

For my two-penneth, I predict the League One silverware could have a traditional ‘Made in Sheffield’ stamp come May 2012. Oh I can dream...

Booth deserving of podium success

Twelve months ago, I was sat in a hospitality tent in Montreal, courtesy of Virgin Racing watching England play in the World Cup in South Africa.

It was the weekend of the Canadian Grand Prix and Yorkshire-based Virgin were struggling to find reliability and pace in their new car.

You could feel the frustrations in the ranks, being in the company of the world’s finest, yet small margins meant they were struggling to compete.

If watching England’s footballers was not depressing enough, then life in F1 was no walk in the park either.

Twelve months on and not much seems to have changed looking in from the outside. Plenty of effort and shed-loads of tears and sweat, but the results are still not good enough.

We hear and read lots of stories about people in F1 which paint a sorry picture about the sport. Yet in John Booth, the man whose Manor Motorsport spawned Virgin Racing, here is a sporting hero who deserves success.

Eloquent, intelligent and polite, Booth is working tirelessly to turn Virgin into real competitors and if there is any sporting justice, one day he will see one of his drivers on the podium.

Now that really would be a champagne moment.