Town's unfortunate start to the season has got our man Chris Rand consulting the history books to see if the slow start is a typical one.

Ah, August, when we all traditionally bask in the stands wearing less clothing than some of the players (well, Lee ‘Long Sleeves’ Martin anyway), and are reminded that our pre-season optimism is always completely unfounded. With a 0-0 home draw against a newly-promoted side being the highlight of the first four matches, I wondered how often Town do this to us, and perhaps more importantly, whether the start of a season has much bearing on the league position the following May.

At what's now known as Championship level, Town have had several unbeaten Augusts, the best of which were 1999/00 (W4 D1 L0) and 1991/92 (W3 D1 L0). Astute observers will immediately notice those were the club's last two promotion seasons, suggesting that there might be a connection between August and May.

Another promotion season, 1967/68, featured an unbeaten August (W2 D2 L0). The season before last, 2007/08, was the other one which saw Town going into September unbeaten, but it should be noted that there had only been three matches (W2 D1 L0) by that stage.

At the other extreme, 1990/91 saw just two matches in August, both defeats, 1964/65 produced just a single point from three matches, and in 2003/04 it was just two points from five matches.

A defeat against Preston on Saturday would therefore make August 2009 Town's worst-ever at this level (one point from five matches), and even a long-overdue win would put this August in the bottom six ever, alongside Jim Magilton's first season, 2006/07, which you'll remember started off LLLDW.

For those of you wondering if there are more matches in August nowadays than there used to be, the answer is that there are, but the number may be falling back. There always used to be three or four August league games, right through to the late nineties (with the exception of a couple of seasons, including 1988/89, when the campaign didn't begin until 27 August for some reason and only had one match that month).

In 1998/99 we had the first ever ‘five-match August’ at Championship level, and this increased to six matches in 2004/05 and 2005/06. However, in the past four seasons we've dropped back to five, four and even three league matches in August.

August Record at Championship Level by Manager

Photo: Action Images

Menton added 13:27 - Aug 24 Why no Robson?
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Mauricio added 13:31 - Aug 24 Because he never managed us at championship level!
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TheDalaiFarmer added 13:31 - Aug 24 Robson never managed the team at Championship level.
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bigdave_blue added 14:00 - Aug 24 John Lyall P6 W3 D1 L3 - Doesn't that make Seven
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MarkITFC added 14:21 - Aug 24 good spot :L above
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Country_Boy added 14:26 - Aug 24 George Burley was a good starter, it would seem!
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dirtydingusmagee added 14:28 - Aug 24 nice to see someone has ''A'' level maths bigdave ! are they really getting easier ?
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CherryHintonBlue added 15:26 - Aug 24 OK, apologies, I copied out the wrong line, Lyall's record should read W2 D2 L2. - Chris
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Steve_M added 18:07 - Aug 24 The use of 'August' as the defining criteria rather than, say, the first six matches makes this slightly misleading. It was only six years ago that we took two point from six games under Royle - we did go on to make the Play Offs after that though.
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Pinewoodblue added 20:20 - Aug 24 Well done. You have shown that you can prove anything by the use of statistics. Clearly John Duncan was our best manager at this level.
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Wozza added 23:47 - Aug 24 Stats ahoy!! Don't think it matters too much to be honest.
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