Sky Blues to get season started against The Iron

COVENTRY City have been handed the perfect start to life back in League One with an opening day game at the Ricoh Arena.

Mark Robins’ newly promoted Sky Blues will entertain Scunthorpe United – one of next year’s favourites, with Nicky Daws’s Iron side having made the play-offs last term.

City then travel to Wimbledon, who struggled last season with an 18th place finish, before their second home game of the campaign, against Plymouth Argyle who just missed out on the playoffs last month.

The Sky Blue Army travel to Blackpool in August, but there will be disappointment among the fans as the traditional excuse to make a weekend of it has been scuppered by the fact that it’s a Tuesday night fixture.

The computer has thrown out another horrible midweek trip with City set to play Joey Barton’s Fleetwood Town on a Tuesday night at the end of November.

However, Christmas has been kind this year, with backto-back home games against Charlton (Boxing Day) and Southend United three days later, while there is a relatively comfortable away trip to Wycombe Wanderers on New Year’s Day.

City resume their local derby with Walsall this season, making the short trip to the Banks’s Stadium in early December, with the return fixture at the Ricoh in mid-February.

Newly-relegated Championship sides Burton and Barnsley will be expected to push for a swift return, and City travel to the Pirelli Stadium in mid-November and to Oakwell at the end of March.

Supporters have to wait until next April for arguably the biggest trip of the campaign, to Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, which comes as part of a tough final run in against promotion hopefuls Bradford City, Portsmouth and Shrewsbury, before a final day trip to Doncaster Rovers.