Unless I am mistaken (an occasional occurence), my recollection is that the Championship, when we were in that dim and distant land, used to start a couple weeks before the Premier League. I see now that this season it starts the w/e of 17th / 18th as indeed do we. Do they cram more games into same time or do they finish after us? Now getting very exciting as only 2 weeks to go. We must not lose the first game! I have a secret (no longer) dream that we will be top after first game having beaten Swansea by a good old margin. Get ready for the ride. It will still be exciting but a little less bumpy than last year! COYRss!!
They also have loads of midweek games and we will have 2 or 4. Without looking Id say the NPC has 10.
It's usually a week later (with a 2nd game in midweek maybe the reason why you were thinking 2 weeks?), Football League normally starts the same week they play the Charity/Community Shield, and then the PL would start the week after. Obviously this year the FL is starting late to avoid a clash with the Olympics and the PL doesn't want to leave it any longer and only have 1 game in August. We do have the LC 1st Round in the week before the season starts this year though, which for me is making it feel more like just another friendly, especially as we've rearranged the game for the weekend before the season starts rather than playing it midweek like most are. End of the season will be as normal. Playoff Finals will be the Bank Holiday weekend (Championship Final gets moved a week early ahead of World Cup and Euros) so the league season finishes first weekend of May (3 weeks before the PO Finals). The two weekends in between will be the FA Cup Final (had the problem before because they couldn't use the Wembley pitch within 2 weeks of playing the CL Final) and the last round of PL games.
