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Have you ever been on a plane and been sat near noisy kids? Even before you’re taxiing to the take-off run-way they’re fidgeting, moaning that they’re bored and getting on everyone else’s nerves. This is where I now feel I am on this trip to the 14/15 Championship season.

The distraction of England playing in the World Cup was something to momentarily take my mind off where we’re heading but after no time I was again asking are we nearly there yet?

I’ve been up, kneeling on my seat and looking around, unlike others who have been able to focus on the screens in front and watch the likes of #BRA, #MEX, #GER & #POR (2014: the World Cup of the three letter hashtags). My trouble is I can’t stop thinking about when #BRE will meet #FUL. Again, I’m even losing interest in #ENG especially with today being such a memorable day in the domestic calendar.

I felt a need to tweet #HappyFixturesDay while eating some breakfast this morning and I wasn’t the only Twitterer impatient for the list of dates and locations to be in the public domain. I guess members of the press team at #BRE probably got a sneaky peek but I tried not to over analyse a Mark Chapman tweet commenting that all home games up to Christmas, bar one, were likely to be all ticket. Harlee Dean simply saying, “First game Fulham away,” well before the 9am official unveiling made me wonder if he had been tipped off or was just dreaming of the same opener as the rest of us.

Going back to the plane analogy, it was as though the World Cup was a history documentary on one channel of your in flight screen but at 9am you were able to watch a preview of where you were actually going. Those annoying kids could watch wonderful into Mickey Mouse, Buzz Lightyear and Penfold from Danger Mouse. Ah nah, sorry, I’m getting confused again, that last one isn’t a Disney character, he’s the #FUL manager. For now. Seeing all the excitement ahead, there’d have to be another scream of are we nearly there yet?

So 9am came, and if I was that kid on that plane I’d suddenly gone as quiet as an Orient fan at that final whistle. In reality, a forty-something year old man sitting in an office rather than a Jumbo, I made sure that my Microsoft Outlook and Link displayed ‘Do Not Disturb’ as my first appointment of the day, “14/15 Planning Session” kicked off.

In truth, I’d been pressing F5 for quite a few minutes, when the magic words, Charlton Athletic, Sky Bet Championship, jumped out and kissed me full on the lips. I’m sure I’m not the only one who immediately started scrolling down for that trip to the Cottage and made a mental note to go mental on April 4th 2015.

Everyone will already have their highlights planned but there was something I needed to do for my Planning Session before I had an actual non #BRE meeting at 9.30. How would the team fare? Looking at the list of teams, it struck me that, this time (more than any other time), there really is nothing to fear about being in the second tier. I stared totting up the points I thought we’d pick up and, having calmed down my earlier calculations, I still see us picking up anywhere between 99 and, my original tally of, 138 points.

I think another highlight for all Bees is looking ahead to that final game where, if he is still there, Uwe will bring his Wigan team down to Griffin Park. We all know what happened in his last final game of the season to be played at Griffin Park. HIS team lost. HIS team lost big time. Could it happen again? Could Wigan, needing a win to overtake us, get a last minute penalty down at Ealing Road? ENOUGH. Ok, well, are we nearly there yet?

As I write this, I understand current World Champions Spain might be going out of the World Cup. They’re losing to Chile. Sorry #ESP are losing #CHI. I couldn’t give a #FUC right now though. I’m back looking at that fixture list. It makes such beautiful reading: a Shakespeare sonnet compared to the toilet graffiti of the League One fixture list Swanny and his Peterborough Telegraph colleagues will be deciphering. I look at 27th September 2014. Both of our teams are at home. Leeds United come to GP. Posh host Fleetwood Town. I wonder if Darren Ferguson will wish he could play them every week? Leeds United back at Griffin Park. Are we nearly there yet?

I focus on the H’s rather than the As on our list. I understand what our Deputy Media Manager was saying and try to pull out his “bar one”. I’m struggling and have to consider he was maybe including the Dagenham & Redbridge League Cup game. The Charlton opener and that Leeds game are the tasty slices in a sandwich deliciously filled with Brighton, Brum and Norwich. We’ve played them all fairly recently but they were big games. There are no small games now. I’m getting increasingly impatient for those packed GP atmospheres yet, like an elderly relative, I will know not to take them for granted and to soak up the memories. When Uwe, or whoever, brings those Latics down in May 2015, the necessity of Lionel Road will be edging closer to reality. While we get nearer and nearer to that landmark move, I’m sure rather than asking, “are we nearly there yet”, there will be moments when I’ll be more like a kid on the way to the dentist rather than Disneyland. Closer to the time, look out for a number for articles from me called “Boo hoo, but I don’t want to go”.

I’ve just heard #ESP are definitely out of the World Cup. Oh well. As the cool album cover once displayed, never mind, tomorrow is another big football day. However I should add, forget crap corners, forget a possible first goal at a World Cup Finals for Mr. 300K a week, forget, “oi, give us the fucking ball”. In fact forget all things #ENG again. Tomorrow is a big day for football due to what is going on down at The Club Shop. Actually, also forget how Championship we’ve become, and how Premier League we may go onto become, The Club Shop, to me, will always be The Club Shop. No Superstore, no Megastore, no Brentford Metro, it’ll always be The Club Shop.

It’s the “home kit launch event” starring Jake Bidwell, Adam Forshaw, Frank McParland (in fact, can we maybe get one more Scouser to make the best Mersey quadruple since The Fab Four?) and Natalie Sawyer. You don’t know how badly I’d like to be able to turn up just to go, “pwhoarrr” (at the new kit – sorry Natalie) but I think I should probably stay away and let the younger supporters enjoy it. I’ll just look forward to seeing the pictures of lots of people wearing their #BEEspoke adidas kits, look ahead to Jake and Adam walking out against Charlton in it and ask, “are we nearly there yet?”

Luis Adriano