Attendance Breakdown – Guest Writer

February 23, 2018 Gary Accrington, Barnet, Cambridge, Carlisle, Cheltenham, Chesterfield, Colchester, Coventry, Crawley, Crewe, Exeter, Forest Green, Grimsby, League Two, Lincoln City, Luton, Mansfield, Morecambe, Newport, Notts County, Port Vale, Stat Attack, Stevenage, Swindon, Wycombe, Yeovil 1

Thanks to Pajustka for his usual break down of attendances in League Two.

There have been exactly 400 games played so far in the 2017/18 EFL Division 2 which represents about 72% (72.46% to be exact) of all the scheduled fixtures in the season (excluding the play offs). So I felt that this was an opportune time to review attendances.

The 400 games already played have attracted an aggregate attendance of 1,733,371 fans, which equates to an average gate of 4,333 per game. The highest crowd being on Saturday 10th February at The Ricoh Arena with 28,343 witnessing Accrington Stanleys’ 2-0 victory against Coventry City. This was however a ”Club Community Day” with the hosts virtually giving tickets away to local schoolchildren, so perhaps can be considered an artificially inflated figure.

There have been another five fixtures attracting an attendance of over 10,000 fans with ALL of these involving Notts County:-

17274: home to Crewe Alexandra on 3rd February

13672: home to Forest Green Rovers on 7th October

11672: home to the Imps on 23rd September

10350: away at Coventry away on the opening day of the season

10063: away at Luton Town on 9th December

Of these five games however the two biggest gates were also ‘Club Community Days’ with reduced gate costs for the fan, so it could perhaps be stated that the best ‘natural’ gate where fans paid full price to see a game was The Imps visit to Meadow Lane on 23rd September.

Ten games attracted gates 9 and 10 thousand fans, 6 of these at Sincil Bank and the other 4 at Kenilworth Road. 19 games were watched between 8 and 9 thousand fans, 7 at Kenilworth Road, 6 at Sincil Bank, 4 at The Ricoh Arena and 1 each at Meadow Lane and the County Ground.

The poorest gate of the season remains the fixture between Morecambe and Crewe Alexandra on Tuesday 21st November when on a cold night only 927 attended. There have been a further 48 matches which have attracted attendances below 2,000; 27 of those (57.4%) can be attributed to two teams – Accrington Stanley and Morecambe. In fact of the 16 home games both have played, The Accies have only had 3 gates over 2,000 (2,850 being there highest against Coventry City on 14th October) but The Shrimps have only had 1 gate above 2,000, when 2,059 watched; ironically a local derby against Accrington Stanley on 2nd September!

The following table provides a breakdown of the gates: –

Attendance Breakdown
Gate No Matches
Over 10,000 6
9000 to 9999 10
8000 to 8999 19
7000 to 7999 22
6000 to 7999 24
4000 to 5999 102
3000 to 3999 92
2000 to 2999 76
1500 to 1999 25
1000 to 1499 23
Below 1000 1
400

The follwing table shows the total number of fans watching each club home and away: –

Aggregate
Home & Away Played Total Average
Attendance Attendance
Lincoln City 33 224542 6804
Coventry City 32 223182 6974
Luton Town 34 218257 6419
Notts Co 33 208604 6321
Swindon Town 34 186385 5482
Chesterfield 33 165816 5025
Cambridge United 34 150370 4423
Carlisle United 34 144814 4259
Port Vale 33 144411 4376
Crewe Alexandra 34 141678 4167
Grimsby Town 34 141335 4157
Exeter City 32 137186 4287
Wycombe Wanders 33 135795 4115
Mansfield Town 33 135262 4099
Colchester United 34 125890 3703
Newport Co 33 125808 3812
Forest Green Rovers 33 121210 3673
Cheltenham Town 34 116211 3418
Accrington Stanley 33 112374 3405
Yeovil Town 33 107974 3272
Stevenage 34 107439 3160
Crawley 34 105610 3106
Barnet 34 100361 2952
Morecambe 32 86228 2695
800 1733371 4333

The team that has been watch by the greatest aggregate of fans remains Lincoln City with 224,542 people seeing their 33 games. In fact only 3 other teams have passed the 200,000 for the total games played, Coventry City (223,182 from 32 games), Luton Town (218,257 from 34) and Notts County (208,604 from 33) with only Morecambe failing to achieve over 100,000 (86,228 from 32).

Table for Home attendances: –

Home Games Total Average
Aggregate Played Attendance Attendance
Lincoln City 17 145987 8587
Luton Town 17 144638 8508
Coventry City 16 141483 8843
Notts Co 17 125798 7400
Swindon Town 17 109432 6437
Chesterfield 17 87830 5166
Carlisle United 17 77195 4541
Cambridge United 17 75334 4431
Port Vale 16 74417 4651
Grimsby Town 17 73068 4298
Wycombe Wanders 16 66457 4154
Crewe Alexandra 18 66242 3680
Mansfield Town 16 64833 4052
Exeter City 16 63556 3972
Colchester United 17 54558 3209
Cheltenham Town 17 52553 3091
Yeovil Town 17 51930 3055
Newport Co 15 50875 3392
Forest Green Rovers 17 45597 2682
Stevenage 17 42902 2524
Crawley 17 35831 2108
Barnet 17 34277 2016
Accrington Stanley 16 25509 1594
Morecambe 16 23069 1442
TOTALS 400 1733371 4333

At home the 3 best-supported teams remain, The Imps, Luton Town and Coventry City, in that order. A total of 145,987 fans have attended Sincil Bank for their 17 homes games an average gate of 8,587 per game. The Hatters are second with an aggregate of 144,638 for their 17 home games (average 8,508) with The Sky Blues third with a total of 141,483 fans attending the 16 home games (average 8,843) however the ‘Club Community Day’ attendance of over 28,000, may have distorted their figures. Whilst The Imps entertain Crewe Alexandra this Saturday The Sky Blues next home fixture is not until 3rd March…against The Imps where a dumper crowd is anticipated, so expect Coventry City to take over top spot shortly.

The two teams in the North West and the three around London fill the bottom five places in the aggregate attendance table, I suppose reflecting the competition from other bigger clubs in their areas playing in higher leagues. It is interesting to note however that both Morecambes’ aggregate attendance (23,069) and Accrington Stanleys’ (25,509) for their 16 home games are lower than the best gate in the division so far this season!

Away from home, I suppose most people will be stunned to see that Accrington Stanley are the most watched travelling club with 86,865 fans watching their 17 games (Average 5,110 per game). However bear in mind that total benefits from the ‘Club Community Day’ at The Ricoh Arena when 28,343 watched. If you remove that attendance from The Accies figures and then add the average Coventry City home gate only 66,065 people watched their 17 games reducing the average gate to 3,886 per game. Those figures would drop them to 23rd in the aggregate table and 22nd in the average attendance table. Just shows what one freak gate can do!

Table of attendances for Away Team: –

Away Games Total Average
Aggregate Played Attendance Attendance
Accrington Stanley 17 86865 5110
Notts Co 16 82806 5175
Coventry City 16 81699 5106
Lincoln City 16 78555 4910
Chesterfield 16 77986 4874
Swindon Town 17 76953 4527
Forest Green Rovers 16 75613 4726
Crewe Alexandra 16 75436 4715
Cambridge United 17 75036 4414
Newport Co 18 74933 4163
Exeter City 16 73630 4602
Luton Town 17 73619 4331
Colchester United 17 71332 4196
Mansfield Town 17 70429 4143
Port Vale 17 69994 4117
Crawley 17 69779 4105
Wycombe Wanders 17 69338 4079
Grimsby Town 17 68267 4016
Carlisle United 17 67619 3978
Barnet 17 66084 3887
Stevenage 17 64537 3796
Cheltenham Town 17 63658 3745
Morecambe 16 63159 3947
Yeovil Town 16 56044 3503
400 1733371 4333

At the bottom of the table, the clubs with either the poorest travelling fans, or perhaps the teams that home fans are not attracted to watching are Yeovil, Morecambe, Cheltenham and Stevenage. Whilst these four hold the table up it should also be borne in mind that some may still have to visit the better supported teams, so the aggregate attendance my shoot up. Look what has happened to Accrington Stanley!

Finally as an aside I have looked at how each club in the division have filled their ground. The following table compares game attendance against ground capacity

Home Games Ground Games Maximum Actual  % Ground
Capacity Played Attendance Attendance Filled
Lincoln City 10120 17 172040 145987 84.86
Luton Town 10356 17 176052 144638 82.16
Exeter City * 6087 16 97392 63556 65.26
Cambridge United 8127 17 138159 75334 54.53
Forest Green Rovers 5141 17 87397 45597 52.17
Chesterfield 10503 17 178551 87830 49.19
Grimsby Town 9027 17 153459 73068 47.61
Mansfield Town 9186 16 146976 64833 44.11
Cheltenham Town 7066 17 120122 52553 43.75
Newport Co 7850 15 117750 50875 43.21
Wycombe Wanders 9617 16 153872 66457 43.19
Swindon Town 15728 17 267376 109432 40.93
Stevenage 6722 17 114274 42902 37.54
Notts Co 19841 17 337297 125798 37.30
Crewe Alexandra 10153 18 182754 66242 36.25
Crawley 6134 17 104278 35831 34.36
Barnet 6205 17 105485 34277 32.49
Yeovil Town 9565 17 162605 51930 31.94
Colchester United 10105 17 171785 54558 31.76
Accrington Stanley 5057 16 80912 25509 31.53
Coventry City 32609 16 521744 141483 27.12
Carlisle United 18202 17 309434 77195 24.95
Port Vale 19052 16 304832 74417 24.41
Morecambe 6476 16 103616 23069 22.26
*Exeter City ground capacity currently reduced from 8541
 

The right hand column shows how full a clubs ground is on match day. Surprisingly, or not only 5 clubs are filling their ground over 50% whereas 3 are achieving less than 25%. It is interesting to note that 3 of the 5 grounds with capacities over 15,000 are towards the bottom of the table, reflecting in the case of Coventry City the hard times they are experiencing.

Perhaps some will say that it is a disadvantage to have a large capacity in a lower division, as you’ll struggle to fill it! However look at the table again and note Accrington Stanley, they have the smallest capacity in the division and are only filling it just over 30%!

Although the above provides good and interesting reading, everything will change as further big matches and local derbies are played. As the season comes to its’ climax some teams will better their position in these tables whilst some won’t, it’ll all depend on the fans and which games they want to watch.

Pajustka 22nd February 2018.

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