Coventry take on Arsenal to open the campaign on Friday
Coventry City FCs promotion to the Premier League celebrations. An open-top bus parade through the city is followed by the We Are Back Live festival and party at War Memorial Park
Friday 21 August marks the start of a brand new era for Coventry City Football Club and the wider city itself - after 25 years, the Sky Blues will play Premier League football once more following a remarkable journey through the divisions.
The club's heroic return, very much like the symbolic phoenix that adorns its badge, has led to a huge feel good factor in the city, and it's a welcome impact.
As a city we have a habit of talking negatively about ourselves - even our club's unofficial anthem, The Enemy's We'll Live and Die in These Towns, is about not letting where you come from 'drag you down'.
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There is something of the underdog in Coventry and its people, we're an understated and hardworking folk, streaked through with a grittiness cultivated by generations of working class people coming to our industrious city to earn a living.
But the return of Premier League football, such a bigger, more global and powerful brand than it was 25 years ago, will help put the city on the map. It's ridiculous this is even needed, considering we're one of the ten biggest cities in the country, but there you go.
Coventry seems to have floated through recent decades in a blur, skulking in Birmingham's shadow.
Coventry sons The Specials' ode to city life, chart topper, Ghost Town, became an anthem we could wallow in - even though the song wasn't written specifically about Cov, it certainly reflected what was happening here at the time.
The de-industrialisation of the city, losing major car manufacturing giants through the 1970s, 80s and 90s left us in the doldrums.
This was then followed by our football team becoming a laughing stock for years as we fell to the bottom wrung of the English Football.
We seemed to become the butt of jokes, an inconsequential middle of the road place with nothing going for it.
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Despite once being the literal capital of the country, albeit briefly, and despite being centre of numerous industries through the centuries. We've had hundreds of car manufacturing companies, we're the home of the modern bicycle, and further back silk weaving and watchmaking - but in recent decades we seem to have lost our identity and we even became disdainful of ourselves.
You only have to look at the responses to any story posted on Facebook about Coventry - our own residents are often the quickest to talk us down. Any new initiative, even the City of Culture, which should have been a celebration, was sneered at in many quarters.
That disdain used to go for both the city itself and CCFC.
But the latter has changed in recent years. First Mark Robins earned us victory at Wembley in 2017, despite being unable to stop us being relegated to League 2 the same season. Then he led us through the divisions and almost earned us a return to the Premier League, a penalty shoot out loss the only thing between us at the top flight back in 2022.
Even with SISU in charge, fans who had sworn off the club were returning. Doug King eventually bought the club, installed Frank Lampard, finally purchased the stadium and took us back to where we belong - and during that eventful journey the negativity turned.
Ten years ago if you saw a 20 kids playing football in a Coventry park, you might not have seen a single CCFC top. Now you see them everywhere you go, and not just kids - people of all ages are wearing the Sky Blue with pride.
Hopefully this passion can extend to the city itself, and we see signs of it already. I think the recent success of the club has helped instil, if not a love, than less disdain for the city than prior - it feels like perhaps Coventrians might be ready to be proud to be from here again.
And the Coventry City FC itself seems to be backing this concept too - in the last year or 18 months there have been concerted efforts on the branding side of thing in embracing the city and its heritage.
Its Motor City theme, a nod to Cov's past industry, has launched in recent months and has been eye catching to say the least. Events at the CBS Arena, a recent overhaul of the hospitality offering has bars and lounges and things like The Watchmakers and the Engine Room.
These aren't coincidences, it's a canny attempt to embrace the city as a whole - and with at least one season (hopefully more) of Premier League football, the financial implications but also the sheer reach that status gives in terms of media, both traditional and online, is huge.
So lets embrace this opportunity, club and city both, and make Coventry somewhere people notice, somewhere people want to go to, and more importantly, somewhere people are proud to be from.