- Published
While much of the nation was still agonising over England's tepid World Cup group-stage stalemate with Ghana, the 2026-27 EFL fixtures were released 84 days ago.
It's a magical day of the year for many of us, 35 weekends stretch before you on a blank canvas.
For most of us, 95.65% of those fixtures are fillers on the calendar; something to look forward to, sure - the first home game, your birthday weekend, the chance to visit a new away ground, an opportunity to catch up with old faces.
It's the other 4.35% that really get your pulse racing, however. Your biggest rival, home and away, the weekend you block out entirely because you know nothing else will matter in your life when it rolls around.
Last May's promotion and relegation hokey-cokey has ensured this season will be different, very different, for fans of several Championship clubs who get to renew long-standing rivalries which have been forged over decades, based on geography, history and quite simply not liking each other very much.
This weekend will be the first blocked out on tens of thousands of calendars this season, here's why...
Millwall and West Ham face-off at The Den
On Saturday lunchtime (12:30 BST), Millwall and West Ham will renew one of the most hostile rivalries in English football for the first time in almost 15 years.
Forged as the 'Dockers Derby', thanks to the clubs' roots in London's shipyards, these two have been going at it since 1899, when Millwall Athletic won 2-1 at West Ham in the FA Cup.
They have met 60 times in total, but just seven of those encounters have come in the past 33 years.
Whoever said absence makes the heart grow fonder was not referring to this bitter affair, which spilled over into trouble on and off the pitch when the sides met in a cup fixture in 2009.
BBC Radio London's Nick Godwin said the scenes "left a scar on football in the city".
He added: "London derbies generally run by their own rules. The expectations, the crowd, the sense of proximity - they all add to an air of unpredictability.
"However, Millwall against West Ham operates on a different level. This match walks a tightrope whenever and wherever it is played. Unlike so many clashes involving sides in the capital, this one happens infrequently."
Their only season in the league together in the past 22 years was 2011-12.
The sides played out a stalemate at The Den in September before the Hammers won 2-1 at Upton Park the following February on their way to promotion back to the Premier League.
This has been the second longest wait for a meeting in the 127-year history of the rivalry, second only to the 31-year gap leading up to their second-tier match in 1978.
The Hammers have not won in Bermondsey since December 1988 at the (old) Den, the Lions winning three and drawing two of the five meetings on home soil since.
"Whichever team copes best in that environment will succeed," Godwin predicts. "If Millwall can rise to the occasion then don't count them out. If West Ham can blot out the noise, their promotion credentials will be burnished.
"There will be plenty watching this game to see if all those questions get overwhelmed by a different sort of story.
"That 90-minute tightrope walk will test everyone involved."
The return fixture is set for February at the London Stadium, which had yet to hold an event when the clubs last met nearly six months before the London Olympics began, a defeat which ended Millwall's seven-match unbeaten league streak against their bitter foes, a run which had lasted almost 21 years to the day.
Black Country foes reunited at Molineux
Whether you agree with the name or not, the Black Country derby is back with a bang on Sunday (12:00 BST).
The rivalry has been going on for more than 140 years and the 164th senior meeting between the sides will be the first since a spicy FA Cup fourth-round tie in January 2024, which then Premier League Wolves won 2-0 at The Hawthorns.
The game was interrupted by 38 minutes due to crowd trouble, which later led to the Baggies being fined by the Football Association.
These two grand old clubs, original members of the Football League, who contested the first ever local derby in the competition, are separated by less than nine miles as a crow flies.
They have only spent one season in the same division in 15 years, the Covid-hit Premier League campaign when both games in 2021 were played behind closed doors.
BBC Radio WM's Wolves commentator Mike Taylor said: "Two silver linings for their fans were identified when Wolves were relegated from the Premier League.
"No longer being exposed to VAR, obviously, was viewed as a release. The other was the return of the Black Country derby.
"It will be a great addition to Wolves' calendar, indeed may play an outsized part in their season by giving them a huge injection of positive energy, if they win. The unspoken part is that the inverse is also true.
"For some years, Wolves have been able to look down from the Premier League at Albion. Losing to them now they are back on the same level would make the loss of that status even harder to accept."
The last league game between the clubs played in front of fans was a 5-1 win for Albion at Molineux in February 2012 - the Baggies have won on six of their past eight visits to Wolverhampton across the past 25 years in all competitions, including an epic 3-2 win in the Championship play-off semi-final in 2007.
Albion have certainly enjoyed the better of their foes over the past three decades, losing only three of 23 meetings prior to the FA Cup defeat last time out and have won 11 more than their old foes over the course of the rivalry, which is so intense it has led to Wanderers making a change to their walkout music at Molineux.
BBC Radio WM's Albion commentator Steve Hermon added: "Because both teams have yo-yoed between the second tier and the Premier League, there have been just six league meetings in the past 17 years.
"Despite that, the hatred between blue and white and old gold has not waned. I think it is an underrated rivalry nationally. The atmosphere for these games is rabid and it can boil over. Hopefully we are just talking about what happens on the pitch."
Still to come in 2026-27
We might have to wait a little while longer for these, but it's not just the London and West Midlands football scenes which will be livelier this season.
Burnley's relegation from the Premier League and Bolton's promotion to the Championship from League One mean there are a hotpot of Lancashire derbies to look forward to this season, with Blackburn and Preston also in the second tier.
You could throw a 20-mile wide cap over all four teams, who made up a third of the original 12 members of the Football League.
The East Lancashire rivalry between Blackburn and Burnley will resume in late November after a year off, with the return game in early February.
Burnley and Bolton were two divisions apart last season but will meet for the first time in nearly 11 years on Boxing Day, with the Trotters having won just one of the past seven meetings in all competitions, losing five of them, having been unbeaten in the rivalry across nine games over 22 years prior to that.
Wanderers will also welcome Blackburn down the road on 5 December - the same weekend Burnley host Preston.
Bolton are top of the Lancashire table so far this season, after a 2-1 win at home to Preston on the opening day. They make the return trip to Deepdale in March, the first of their three away Lancashire derbies in the space of 14 days, during which Preston also entertain Burnley.
While Wrexham have gatecrashed the party in the past 12 months, there is really only one game that sets the pulses racing in Wales.
The south Wales derby is back, following Cardiff's promotion back to the Championship at the first attempt last season.
The Bluebirds head to Swansea at the end of November before the return fixture in the capital in mid-March.
One of the fiercest rivalries in the game was born in Swansea's first competitive fixture in 1912.
Cardiff won the last encounter 3-0 in January 2025, a rare bright spot on the path to relegation, with Swansea's last win coming in March 2024 - though the Swans did the double-double for the first time in the rivalry's history in 2021-22 and 2022-23.
