LOOKING over this season’s fixtures, it’s pretty easy to see how Perth fans could feel hard done by.

They don't see their team play at home until round three, and Glory play there just three times in their first eight games.This is hardly a scenario which will stir up media interest at the important opening end of the season, a struggle the Perth side traditionally have while the AFL season is still on. Then there's the strange anomaly with the number of home fixtures - in the past, the game's governing body have maintained that the number of home matches will balance out over time - so if you got one less home match than half the league one year, you'd have one extra the next.

This has worked out to be much the case for Glory in the first four seasons of the A-League; 11 home matches in the first season, then 10, then 11, then 10 again last year. But this year's fixtures see Glory play a greater number of away fixtures again, with only 13 home fixtures instead of 14. Does this mean they'll get a greater number of home matches both next year and the year after?

There's even better news- a double away trip to Wellington is complimented by two tours to the new kids on the block, Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury (if Queensland Roar couldn't claim the rights to all of Queensland, what gives the Fury the right to claim the whole north of the state? Surely it should be Townsville Fury, or A-Bit-Above-The-Others-On-The-Map Fury? Tropical Fury? Slightly-Underwater Fury? Anyway, I digress...)

The Perth-Welly trips are already the longest in Australian domestic football (and now once again the world thanks to the relegation of some Russian team in Sibera) and Perth-Brisbane is a trip even those tough, chicken-beating, girl-bashing, legendary iron men of the AFL complain about.

Now there's Perth-Townsville and Perth-Gold Coast trips to accompany it, meaning even more frequent flyer miles for the lads from the west. Thankfully, at least the FFA have taken this into account and booked the Gold Coast and North Queensland away games back to back twice, making for two large road trips that Glory players can use to acclimatise to the conditions better.

I can see the relief on Dave Mitchell's face when he realises that his defenders won't have to suffer all the horrible jet lag that clearly caused them to lose 4-1 away in Queensland last year... and just think of all the fun that players and coaching staff can have on a tour of the Gold Coast and Townsville- twice! Lucky devils! Just imagine, they can go on sightseeing to visit all their favourite attractions, then come back and see them again! "This is a palm tree". "This is sugar cane". "This is a building near a beach". "This is a redneck". "This is cat urine cleverly disguised as beer". Wonderful!

That said, in all seriousness it's good that Glory are trying to force the FFA to reconsider the travel burdens faced by the club - financially and otherwise. Here you have a team that regularly has to fly 3000km to face someone every other week, and then there's a womens' team and youth team to pay for that aren't always playing on the same day, same ground, or same state as the senior side! What other club has this sort of issue?

Wellington are close to the eastern seaboard, Adelaide is in the middle of everything, and teams in New South Wales and Queensland actually have some sort of concept of a local derby now and then. Mind you, I'm by no means advocating what some people proposed - a slight raise in the salary cap for Perth because of their isolation and difficulty in attracting players.

No, Perth fail to attract players because they've failed to finish above seventh for the past three years, and they've recruited badly (pre-Mitchell). What I would like to see though is a small contribution on the part of the FFA towards Perth's greater travel and administrative costs, a burden other teams don't have to meet. Think about it, it's a great attraction for investors in the club - "You have to pay more than anyone else in order to be able to spend the same amount of money on players as everyone else". Personally, I can't see that winning too many businesspeople over. Alternatively, the FFA could just get Qantas or Jetstar (much more appropriate) to sponsor the A-League, and pay for everyone's travel and accommodation. Simple, right?

While I'm still on the fixtures, it's interesting that one of the most common excuses trotted out by the FFA with regards to why the A-League doesn't feature simple home-away-home-away fixtures is this; "Ground x has other commitments that weekend". Now I know that everyone is acutely aware that it's actually Fox Sports who make the decisions regarding fixtures, but if I can visit a site like http://bluebones.net/fixtures.php and knock up fixtures for my cousin's junior side in five seconds, there just has to be a more advanced software package available that can do it for our league too.

How is it for example that Perth can play weird patterns like A-A-H-H-A-H-A-A and still have to move a home game because of "ground availability"? Isn't that what the "weird" fixtures were trying to avoid in the first place? Subiaco Oval is where football (the round one) goes to die. Honestly, apart from finals games where the atmosphere of 43,000 people jammed into a stadium distracts you from the poor viewing angles, there is no worse place to watch a sport with a rectangular field.

The last Socceroos match at "Subi" drew only 13,000 people thanks to poor marketing and two weak line-ups, and resulted in an atmosphere of nil. The last time I was there for a Wallabies match, I was sitting in one of the better seats available and still couldn't see where the ball was half the time. Of course, if I was sitting in the corporate boxes up and to the sides of the ground I would have been fine...

But if Glory do end up playing Sydney FC there during the regular season, I can't see the WAFC or Perth Glory's administration allowing The Shed to temporarily relocate to The Corporate Box. Doesn't have the same ring to it, anyway- "Corporate Box Boys, Glory Army..." etc.

In other news, this week the rumours have been flying hard and fast about the imminent signing of ex-Real Betis player Denilson and Derby County's Andy Todd. To be honest, I'd much prefer the 34-year old centre back than the Brazilian winger. While I know that sounds stupid, let's look at who Glory have playing in their positions already. On the left wing they've got Victor Sikora, who can fire in raking crosses and pin-point corners- and you would surely not want to put one international player out of position to accommodate another.

Meanwhile to fill the two centre back positions Perth have stalwart Jamie Harnwell, the injury-plagued David Tarka, a couple of youth players, and... a gaping hole. The gaping hole did extraordinarily well last season, showing up all over the Glory defence and getting plenty of television time.

Considering that Denilson seems to be motivated primarily by cash, and that Perth would only get him for a guest stint anyway, it seems only logical that Glory should concentrate on signing Todd and relegating the gaping hole to the bench (where he'd still probably outperform Nikolai Topor-Stanley).

Finally, let's get down to the emergence of Glory's new logo. To begin with, I have to profess my love of Perth's original logo. In the old NSL, it signalled a bright new dawn of Australian football - a club formed in the most isolated state in the land that was to finally play in a national league, and a club devoid of any particular ethnic ties.

The latter was important, not because "da effniks" are a horrible group of people - they've brought more to football in this country than anyone else - but because it meant that anyone, whether they be Croat, Serb, Greek, Italian, English or Australian, could come along to the game without the myths and misconceptions that "sokkah" otherwise carried.

When the A-League came along, Nick Tana and the FFA completely cocked the logo it up. Let's face it - it's an orange in the middle of the word GLRY. I totally understand what they were trying to do with the second logo... but I can't help but think they were off their faces when they finally drew it up.

As for the new logo, I think it's got a bit of Gold Coast United and Adelaide about it, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I like the addition of the badge, and I'm happy that Perth have kept the suburst theme going. It's part of their heritage, and heritage is important to preserve (except in the case of butt-ugly buildings that should have been torn down decades ago. Sorry - it's a Perth thing).

Tony Sage claims it represents a bold new era for the club, and I think all Glory fans would be hoping he's right. I think it will take time, but if he continues to revamp the club's image while still respecting it's history, Sage might actually be on to something.

Now that fans have a date for the season proper, and a high-profile game against Wolves in July, it's high time to start making some more noise. Not too much mind you - you don't want to peak too early - but enough to keep people interested in the club and the league as a whole.

By the time the Wolverhampton game comes around, you'd hope Glory would have been smart enough to kick start a membership drive, ready to sign up in droves what will hopefully be a packed house. In the meantime, it would be great to see a squad begin to come together - I'd hate to think what the result would be if Perth played Wolves tomorrow- and a few key signings made. Perhaps by the time this blog is published, they'll already have one. Anyhow, I'm off to practise spelling Wayne Srhoj's name... See you next week.