THE Blue Square Premier fixtures broke new ground in more than one way.
Not only did the league become the first to stage a match the day before the official season began, but it also compiled the fixtures manually.
General manager Dennis Strudwick revealed to the Oxford Mail that after the Premiership and Football League fixtures came out, he spent ten working days compiling the fixtures for both the Blue Square Premier, North and South Leagues.
Although the North and South matches were done this way last year, it was a first for the Premier.
"I was asked if the fixtures could be done by hand rather than a computer and didn't see any reason why not," he said.
"The difficulty is that approximately 50 out of the 68 clubs would prefer their matches not to clash with local rivals - for example teams in the Manchester area do not want to be at home the same day as Manchester United so there is a lot of difficulty in accommodating everyone.
"I know some clubs will not be happy with certain matches, but we certainly did our best."
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