Gillingham kick off their 2016/17 campaign with a trip to Southend United.

The opening game of the season is on Saturday, August 6.

League 1 ends a week earlier than the Championship and League 2, with the Gills concluding their campaign away to last season’s League 2 champions Northampton Town, on Sunday, April 30.

Gillingham visit rivals Charlton Athletic on Easter Monday (April 17) and have a midweek trip to Swindon Town on February 28.

The New Year’s Eve game will be Millwall away after visiting Peterborough United on Boxing Day. A home game against Oxford United will on January 2 will conclude their festive programme.

View the full list of fixtures here.

First round FA Cup fixtures take place on Saturday, November 5.

The Gills will be looking to improve on last season’s finish, which saw them narrowly miss out on a play-off place, despite being among the front-runners for much of the campaign.

Newcomers this season include AFC Wimbledon, the League 2 play-off winners skippered by former Gills captain Barry Fuller. The Gills visit the Dons on Saturday, October 1.

Oxford United and Bristol Rovers have also come up from League 2.

Gills will come up against Charlton again in the league, for the first time since meeting them in League 1 during the 2009/10 season. Both fixtures ended in a draw during that season.

The Addicks – relegated from the Championship last season - make the visit to Priestfield on Saturday, October 22 ahead of the reverse fixture later in the season.

MK Dons have also been relegated to League 1 along with financially-troubled Bolton, who last played Gills in 2001.

Gillingham will have a long wait before welcoming Millwall back to Priestfield. The final game of the 2015/16 season was marred by trouble inside and outside of the ground. Millwall visit on Saturday, April 8.

Now the fixtures have been released clubs have 10 days to request any changes to kick-off times, including moving games to a Friday night or a Sunday. Only then will the fixtures be finalised.

The draw for the first round of the League Cup – now known as the EFL Cup – takes place at 1pm today (Wednesday). Full details will be on the kentonline website.

Gillingham are seeded in the draw and so will miss out on playing one of the ‘bigger’ teams in the southern section.

First round games in the EFL Cup game comes the week commencing August 8 and the second round is on August 21.

The opening round of the revamped EFL Trophy – formerly the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy - takes place on August 29. The first regional round is set to comprise a four-team group with one of those participants being a top-flight academy team.

Six of Gillingham’s previous seven opening day league fixtures have been at home, winning four of them, so it was no surprise to see them start away this time around.

Memorable opening day fixtures among those games included last season’s 4-0 drubbing of Sheffield United and the 5-0 win over Swindon in 2009 where Simeon Jackson bagged a hat-trick.