With just a few more weeks to go until the fixtures for the 2024/2025 League One season are released, what can we expect on our travels?

Looking at the League One table for 2024/25 feels a bit like thinking about going back to school, when you're in the middle of the summer holidays. The bags haven't yet been packed and the uniforms ironed but you know it's just around the corner and it's going to feel a lot closer when the fixtures are released on Wednesday 26th June. 

At this stage, it's too early to assess things on the football front though I am sure we all have a sense of who we expect to be the main runners and riders in next season's promotion race. Hopefully we will be amongst the main challengers after the non-event of the past couple of seasons where we've never really been at the races.

Off the pitch next season could be quite interesting though with a few new grounds to go to and a few old haunts lurking on the horizon. Maybe the one that stands out, getting top-billing for various reasons, is Wrexham. We're all going to be bit players in their Netflix show next season which has had a massive boost in America thanks to Birmingham's relegation.

There are even adverts in south east London bus shelters announcing 'This is Wrexham' which must surely be false advertising because last time I checked we were still within the surrounds of Greenwich, Charlton and Woolwich. But if anything diverts the spotlight away from the Premier League to the lower divisions, it can only be a positive.

Coming up into League One alongside Wrexham, we have Stockport County, Mansfield Town and Crawley Town, with the latter flying into fine form during the play-offs and offering particularly great potential as an away day trip for our International Addicks, on account of being so close to Gatwick Airport.

Ironically we last played Mansfield and Stockport in FA Cup games in 2018 and 2022 respectively, with contrasting fortunes, and have only ever faced Crawley Town in The Football League Trophy. However, when it comes to Wrexham we have to go right back to 1982 for our last competitive fixture, so that's going to be a new ground for a lot of fans.

At the other end of the promotion and relegation landscape, relegated Rotherham and Huddersfield will be familiar faces, bringing back more than a few memories including "that" 0-5 defeat in 2016. It's been four years since we last faced Birmingham, one-time rivals of the Premier League era.

Speaking of Premier League rivalries, Bolton are back in the mix too after missing out in the play offs. And in recent times their history kind of mirrors our own in the fight to regain past glories. By the end of 2024/25 we'll have played them competitively at least 99 times and no doubt both sides will be hoping Match-day 100 takes place in the Championship in 25/26.

Former Premier League clubs Barnsley and Blackpool, neither of whom we have ever actually faced in the top division are back again too, with the latter now the most northerly club in League One. Ideally we get our trip up there early while the sun's still shining so that we can squeeze one last seaside weekend out of the summer.

Closer to home, Leyton Orient are going to provide us with our solitary London derby though by some accounts Wycombe are considered an outer London club and such is the shortness of the train journey we could include Stevenage at a stretch. Then again by that reckoning, with the new Lizzie Line out of Woolwich, Reading's nearly a London derby these days.

Others in the division include a likely mid-table grouping of Northampton, Exeter and Bristol Rovers, with Burton, Shrewsbury and Cambridge anticipated to be at the southern end of the division that we hope to avoid this time round. Meanwhile Peterborough, Lincoln and Wigan, without a points deduction this time, will be eyeing the play-offs.

So there's plenty to look forward to in this division on and off the pitch in 2024/25. Somewhere very soon, the Addicks will be on their travels, kickstarting a drive that this time, we hope against hope, takes us northwards to the Championship.