Tournament game order

Hi, wonder if you can help. Each year our club has a tournament and the biggest problem is working out the order of each game. We play round-robin so every pair plays every other pair, so give 8 pairs the best order (longest gap between games, and therefore avoid problem of games being held up waiting for a pair to finish a prior game) would be as follows:
1 v 2
3 v 4
5 v 6
7 v 8
1 v 3
2 v 4
5 v 7
6 v 8
1 v 4
3 v 5
2 v 8
6 v 7
1 v 5
4 v 8
3 v 6
2 v 7
1 v 8
4 v 5
2 v 6
3 v 7
5 v 8
1 v 6
4 v 7
2 v 3
1 v 7
3 v 8
2 v 5
4 v 6
If you look at Pair 1 for instance, they typically have 3-4 games break between having to play again, and the same applies to all pairs. I know this works as i copied it from a book!

The problem comes if you have a greater number of pairs - is there a way in maths or through programming of calculating the optimum game order where the maximum time between games is achieved for all pairs? At the moment I have to work it out by hand and would really like to automate the process!

thanks in advance, Keith