Colin West was at Victoria Park on Thursday morning in time to see the fixture list for 2009/10 arrive.

And the Assistant Coach admitted that seeing the fixtures brought home the task ahead on League One next term,

"I think without trying to mask over things, this is one of the toughest leagues that League One has seen for a long long time.

"You look at some of the big clubs that have come down and then the clubs who have come up and spent money and then see that we still have the likes of Huddersfield, Millwall and Leeds in this league too."

West admitted he was hoping for a home game to kick off the season and admitted it's unusual for a team to be on the road at the beginning and end of a campaign. 

"Well you always automatically look to have a home game first to try and see if you can get off to a decent start then you can get up and running.

"That hasn't been overly kind to us this year and I think this is the first time for me that we'll be away both first and last games of the season.

"The first month will be a test for us and there is a little bit of travelling but the big clubs who have come down will have to discover whether or not they can handle the situation mentally or not - some of their players will have come from the Premier League never mind the Championship and this will be a very different league for them."

And the Assistant Coach revealed that there is a real excitement within the Club ahead of the new season,

"Fixtures day a massive day for the supporters and players - I hope they are as keen as we the staff are, I am sure they are.

"I'm sure the supporters will be all looking through the fixtures and planning where they can go throughout the season.

"Me, Chris (Turner) and Russ (Green) have been speaking about players and then when we have been able to bring them in thanks to the Chairman and IOR, it sets up for a mouth-watering season.

"It's been an exciting close season so far with the players we have brought in and the players who are already here must be looking forward to having some fresh faces around them and I think we're all looking forward to getting back to training on July 1^st."