Newcastle United will host Aston Villa on the opening day of the 2023/24 Premier League season. For the best part of a decade, the Magpies have been handed top flight curtain-raisers at St. James' Park - an advantage they will hope to capitalise on come August. Here, nufc.co.uk takes a look at some of the stats behind some notable dates in the calendar...
For the eighth time in their last nine top flight campaigns, Newcastle United will have home advantage on the opening weekend of the season after the 2023/24 Premier League fixtures were released on Thursday.
Eddie Howe's side will welcome Aston Villa to St. James' Park on Saturday, 12th August, with the curtain-raiser's kick-off set for 5:30pm BST. The game will also be shown live on Sky Sports.
The visit of Unai Emery's men will mark another home start for those in black and white, with Manchester City, Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur (twice), Arsenal, West Ham and Nottingham Forest having previously faced the trip to Tyneside to kick off their campaigns in recent years.
United saw off Forest on the first day under Howe last term and they will be hoping for a similarly successful start against Villa this time around, with their 2-0 victory at West Ham in 2020 their only other opening-day victory at home in the last decade.
August's clash will be the fifth time Newcastle have begun the season with a game against Villa. The 1903/04 season saw a 1-1 draw between the sides at St. James' before a remarkable display of goalscoring from Hughie Gallacher - who netted all of United's goals that day - handed the Magpies a 4-0 home win in 1926 as Frank Watt's team embarked on what turned out to be a First Division title-winning campaign.
There was another 1-1 draw between the teams at Villa Park at the start of the 1966/67 season while the most recent day one meeting came in 1999, when Alan Shearer was dismissed in a 1-0 defeat for Ruud Gullit's United on their own patch.
The omens look promising for the Magpies, though. The 2023/24 season will be their 120th league campaign in all, with Newcastle having secured wins on 50 of their previous 119 opening day matches, losing only 39 in the process. At home, their record on day one is also strong - they have won 33 and drawn 15 of their 65 opening matchdays at St. James' Park.
Just before Christmas, meanwhile, there will be a top flight meeting between United and newly-promoted Luton Town, who will entertain Howe's charges at Kenilworth Road in what will be their debut Premier League season. The last time the Hatters faced Newcastle in the top division was back in 1988/89, when both clashes between the sides finished goalless.
A few days later, United face Forest at home on Boxing Day, hoping for a repeat of last term's 3-0 win at Leicester City on the same date - their first Boxing Day win since 2016.
And a trip to Brentford in May will be the fifth time in the last six seasons that Newcastle have closed a campaign on the road - with four of those previous five trips being to clubs in the capital.
United are unbeaten in their previous four final-day outings away from home, with Fulham twice having been beaten at Craven Cottage and Burnley being dispatched at Turf Moor at the end of 2021/22. Anthony Gordon's goal helped earn a 1-1 draw at Chelsea last month to bring the curtain down on a magnificent 2022/23 season - and United supporters will hope there will also be plenty to celebrate by the time they converge on the Bees' Gtech Community Stadium in just under a year's time.