One 3pm opener, Martin's first Old Firm & who has hardest start? - Premiership fixture takeaways

The palpable excitement whipped up by the unveiling of a bunch of dates in a calendar is a strange phenomenon in football.

Across Scotland, fully grown adults will be like kids at Christmas this Friday morning. Booking trains, scanning hotel booking websites, all while conducting a Google map scan of every pub along the route of a train station to a stadium with military precision.

This season's Premiership fixtures were unleashed to supporters at 0900 BST, but what are the things punters will be talking about as they update their social diaries?

A bizarre quirk of this season's Scottish Premiership opening day is that there's three of them.

Two games get things going on Saturday as Kilmarnock host Livingston and Motherwell take on Russell Martin's Rangers.

You then have to wait until Sunday for three more to follow, including defending champions Celtic against St Mirren, while Hearts and Aberdeen bring the whole thing to a close on Monday.

Curiously, there is actually only one game - Kilmarnock v Livingston - which kicks off at 15:00 BST on the Saturday. This will have traditionalists burning their match programmes and hurling their Bovril out the window.

Why? Well, the game at Fir Park has been shifted later for television, making it four of the six opening games being broadcast live. Hibs and Dundee United also have European qualifiers on the preceding Thursday.

Yes, yes, there are three city derbies in the Premiership. There's no west-coast bias here.

However, there will be a particular clamour around the first meeting of Celtic and Rangers this season. The Ibrox side have a new manager in Martin, and there will plenty of anticipation to see how his team fare against Brendan Rodgers' Celtic given the chasm between the two clubs last season.

Both teams will also have been in European qualifying beforehand to give this one an extra edge.

Rangers, who picked up seven points in last term's derbies and still finished miles behind, host the first Old Firm meeting on 31 August with a noon kick-off.

When is the Dundee derby? It's the day before at Dens Park. Will United still be in Europe by then? Will Steven Pressley, a former city rival in his playing days, have got off to a flyer with the blue half of the city?

You then have to wait until the first weekend in October before the Edinburgh derby takes centre stage.

It's another city rivalry that will feature a new manager and Hearts boss Derek McInnes will have home advantage for his first taste of the fixture.

You can bet your Killie Pie on it.

A restricted amount of television fixtures have been released so far. Basically the opening two weekends, the first Old Firm game and the festive Edinburgh derby.

Beyond that, it's a disconcertingly straightforward calendar so far. But hang fire booking your hostel in Dundee.

Plenty of games will still be moved for television, while European football has the potential to cause chaos.

Celtic and Aberdeen are both guaranteed group stage football, with the latter almost certain to have a raft of games moved to a Sunday.

On top of that, you have the unknown fate for Dundee United, Hibernian and Rangers on their continental adventures.

The answer to this will be the same regardless who you ask: "My team."

Football fans are not renowned for their impartiality or rational thinking, every person's favourite club has been dealt a short hand.

Or have they?

Our friends at Opta have crunched the number for the opening four games, and it appears St Mirren - who have Celitc, Rangers and an away trip to Easter Road among their opening matches - have got it the hardest.

Next you have Dundee, who have Rangers, Hibs, Kilmarnock away on a plastic pitch plus a derby. Then it's Motherwell who open to Martin's Ibrox side.

It appears the SPFL super computer was built in Edinburgh, with both capital clubs allegedly having the softest start.

Famous last words.

In recent memory, Scottish football has had Christmas Eve fixtures, Boxing Day fixtures, Hogmanay fixtures and even New Year's Day fixtures.

Thoughts still lie with the hungover Motherwell fans watching their team get scudded 5-0 by Hamilton Academical on 1 January in 2015.

But this year the calendar has fallen away from any landmark dates across the festive period.

Saturday 27 December is the chosen day for a full card, the Edinburgh derby kicking things off at 12:30 GMT.

We then have six games on Tuesday 30 December, before we bounce on to Saturday 3 January as the Dundee and Glasgow derbies provide a blockbuster start to the new year.

However, as with everything, keep an eye out for television commitments to potentially rip this up...