Watford away fans face 2600 miles travelling in eight weeks.
There’s the small matter of a trip up the M1 to come first, but on the horizon is a run of away trips that could easily be called the ‘unmagnificent seven’.
That’s because between Tuesday October 22 and Saturday December 21, Watford will play seven fixtures on the road that involve a whopping 2,634 miles of travelling.
Watford’s Vicarage Road Stadium has been used as the starting point to calculate that figure, and obviously with fans dotted all around the country individual distances will be more or less.
But given the majority of Hornets fans live relatively close to the WD18 area, it means that those hardy supporters who go to all away games will be covering a massive number of miles in less than two months.
Don’t forget, in those same 61 days, Watford also have five home games as well, so that’s a total of 12 fixtures in a little more than eight weeks.
The fixture computer has landed the travelling fans with a highly-demanding schedule in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
Both away games in Wales (Swansea and Cardiff), the only trip of the season to Devon (Plymouth), three visits to Yorkshire (Sheffield Wednesday, Leeds and Hull) and the most northerly Championship game in Lancashire (Burnley).
Drivers of an average-sized car can expect the total cost of petrol to be around £300 if they attend all seven!
According to Google Maps, those seven journeys add up to 52 hours of driving time (and that’s not allowing for toilet breaks, unexpected traffic etc).
And to make matters worse, the majority of those hours will be driven in the dark, as four of the seven away games are evening kick-offs.
It would have been three, but Sky handed Watford fans a 480-mile Friday night excursion by switching the game at Plymouth for live coverage.
The 2,634 miles that will be covered is the equivalent of a trip to Malta and back, or going from John O’Groats to Land’s End . . . three times.
Of course, that run of seven games doesn’t include trips to the two north-east outposts in the Championship – but the Football League have saved those up and handed them to Watford fans as back-to-back away games in the New Year.
The Hornets visit Sunderland on Saturday February 8 and then go to Middlesbrough on Saturday February 15.
That will mean 1,000-plus miles, and more than 19 hours of driving time, in the space of a week.
However, that could change as Sky have still to announce the fixtures they are moving for live broadcast later in the season.
Consecutive winter Friday nights in the north-east? Surely even Sky and the EFL wouldn’t do that…
