1 1 1 – The End Of The Beginning – Post 44

Saturday was the first day of the season and, however you spin it, a 1-1 draw at home is disappointing. I wasn’t going into the game expecting Bury to be brushed aside, I was thinking they’d put up some stubborn resistance but Town would probably have a bit too much in the end; (a Draw/Home scenario, possibly 2-1 or 3-1). Of course, that’s not how it panned out, and it made the season open with a bit of a damp squib.

But is it the end of the world. How likely is an opening day draw to curtail promotion hopes, or result in disappointment? Well, we don’t know. We won’t do until May. In the meantime, I’ve collated tables of the opening day results from the last five years for all teams promoted within the Football League (10 each season). I remember some of them – Southampton’s defeat at home to Plymouth, who ended up relegated, for example – Norwich’s 1-7 defeat was the stuff of legend, but they also lost 3-2 at Watford on Sky on the first day of last season. I don’t think it matters a bean, to be honest. A 1-7 defeat would instigate a bit of worry, and I’d expect changes, but a slowish start shouldn’t matter at all.

So here we go.

My prediction, for once, was correct. Hurrah!

It doesn’t matter a bean what you do in your first game, then. Promotion, if it is to be yours, will be yours.

Other than that Norwich 1-7 Colchester, which is a curio in and of itself, 50%, or five, as its also known, of the promoted teams in 2009/10 drew 1-1 in their first matches – Newcastle Utd and West Bromwich Albion against one another.