Town Boss Dave Flitcroft was thrilled to find out his side’s 2017/18 fixture list earlier and he’s looking forward to the opening day trip to Carlisle United.
Swindon will head to Brunton Park on Saturday 5th August looking to get off to a winning start in the Sky Bet League Two.
Carlisle reached the Play-Offs last season and Flitcroft feels it will be an ideal test for what will be a new-look Town team.
“Every football fan anywhere looks forward to this day and I couldn’t wait to get out of bed this morning and anticipate who we might get,” he told swindontownfc.co.uk exclusively.
“We now know and it is a long trip up to Carlisle – we’ll certainly be prepared and ready for it.
“Keith (Curle) has been building a team at Carlisle over a sustained period and they had an excellent season last year having reached the Play-Off Semi-Finals.
“I went to the Play-Off game against Exeter when I was working for Leicester, so I’ve probably got good knowledge of Carlisle currently, but that will obviously change in the summer with recruitment.
“Keith has been there a while now, he’s been building it steadily, they’ve had some good campaigns and he’s an excellent coach and manager.
“The team is set up structurally well so it will be a great test for us.
“It will be a good test for me to see my new staff all working together on an away trip, which is different in terms of the planning, preparation and the meticulous detail that you’ve got to go through to get that right, so it gives me a really good chance early on to imprint what I do as a manager to my staff.
“We’ll get that opportunity in pre-season to educate the staff in what I want and it just brings that process forward.
“It is just a brilliant day for football fans to see who they can look forward to playing.”
Following the opening day clash against Carlisle, Town will head to Norwich City in the Carabao Cup before hosting Exeter City at The County Ground on Saturday 12th August, which will be Flitcroft’s first home game in charge of the Reds.
“I’ve been at the club for a couple of weeks now and every time I’m in the office and walk down to the pitch, I look and I can’t wait to stand in the dugout as the new manager of Swindon Town,” Flitcroft added.
“I’m excited by that.
“We’ll have to wait a week because of the Carlisle fixture and then we’ll take on a very fancied side in Exeter and, again, Paul (Tisdale) has done a fantastic job down there in terms of what he’s built.
“Exeter do get consistent results and they got to the Play-Off Final last season, so it is another good test for us but that’s what we’re competing with and against and we’ll look forward to every single game we play.
“We’ll go head-to-head with teams and we look forward to playing whoever it is.”
