England (including Wales, and Isle of Man) – map of all football clubs drawing above 1 K per game (2021-22 attendance figures): 143 clubs, including 51 non-League clubs.
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By Bill Turianski on the 8th of July 2022; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Sources…
-Article on defining the largest cities in the UK.. Where are the largest cities in Britain? (citymetric.com).
-List of metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom (en.wikipedia.org).
-Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of England (en.wikipedia.org).
Attendance figures…
-worldfootball.net. (Average attendances last season from the 1st division through 4th division.)
-nonleaguematters.co.uk. (Average attendances last season of all non-League clubs, ie from 5th division down.)
The map shows all clubs in the English football system which drew above 1,000 per game in 2021-22 (home domestic league matches): 143 clubs, including 51 non-League clubs.
Also, there is an inset-map for all the clubs from Greater London-plus-the-immediate surrounding area (18 clubs from Greater London + 4 clubs from surrounding areas of the Home Counties). On the left-hand side of the map-page, the clubs are listed by average attendance, along with a column showing 3 things: league-level; 2021-22 league-finish; and promotion-or-relegation (green for promotion/red for relegation. On the right-hand side of the map-page are 2 charts showing the English football league system, aka the Pyramid. 2021-22 league details are from myfootballfacts.com.
(Note: in bold-17-to-36-point-type, on the map, are listed the 9 largest cities within England {all English cities with more than .6 million inhabitants/see first link above}…Greater London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, Bristol. Also, in 12-to-15-point-type, on the map, are listed the 83 Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of England. Also, in 14-point-all-cap-bold-type, are listed prominent British regional names such as: the East Midlands, the West Midlands, East Anglia, the West Country, and the Lake District; as well as North Wales and South Wales.)
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There were 143 clubs which drew above 1,000 per game in 2021-22, plus I added one club that came 2-per-game shy of that mark (Ilkeston Town, of Derbyshire). I included Ilkeston Town because there are almost always slight discrepancies in attendance figures from source to source, especially in non-League football, and 998 per game is just too close to one thousand to leave them off the map.
Of the 143 clubs that drew above 1-K-per-game last season, 11 are clubs which were not drawing above 1-K-per-game in the last two seasons of full attendance (which were 2018-19 and 2019-20, while 2020-21 was the season that COVID prevented full attendance). To the best of my knowledge, 9 of the 11 clubs listed below had never averaged above 1,000 per game, the two exceptions being Gateshead, and St Albans City. Below are those 11 clubs (with league-levels and locations listed)…
-Boreham Wood. 5th tier club. From Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, located about one mile north of the Greater London border and 12 miles north of central London. The Wood made it to the 5th Round of the FA Cup in March 2022. 4 years ago they made it to the National League play-off final (in 2018, losing to Tranmere). For 4 of their first 5 seasons in the 5th division (2015-20), Boreham Wood were the lowest-drawing 5th tier club; Boreham Wood finally drew above one thousand per game in 2021-22.
-Bury AFC. A new Phoenix-club. 10th tier, promoted to 9th tier. Are not playing at Gigg Lane (like the defunct Bury FC did), but at the at 3.5-K-capacity Stainton Park, in Radcliffe, 2.5 miles SW of Bury in Greater Manchester. Bury AFC drew 1.3-K per game in their first season, compared to the 4.0-K per game that Bury FC drew in their last season (2018-19) {BFC/BAFC attendance history at european-football-statistics.co.uk}.
-Dorking Wanderers. Est. 1999. 6th tier, promoted to 5th tier. From Surrey. Dorking Wanderers have won 4 promotions in the last 6 seasons. In 2015-16, Dorking were a newly-promoted 8th tier club drawing 124 per game. In 2018-19, Dorking were a 7th tier club drawing 570 per game, and were promoted. In 2019-20, in their first season in the 6th tier, Dorking drew 703 per game, finishing in 7th. Then in ’21-22, Dorking drew 1,300 per game, won the play-offs, and now are a 5th division club.
-FC Isle of Man. A new club. 10th tier, promoted to 9th tier. From Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man, in the Irish Sea. (The Isle of Man is a British Crown Dependency of the UK.) FC Isle of Man play at the Bowl (3.5-K-capacity), and the club pays travelling teams’ expenses. {Photos of the Bowl, here (twitter.com/[@christopher7590]).} In their first season in 2021-22, FC Isle of Man drew 1.6-K per game and won promotion via the play-offs. In ’22-23, they will play in the 9th tier NWCL Premier.
-Gateshead. 6th tier, promoted to 5th tier. From Tyne and Wear, just south of Newcastle. ‘The Heed’ drew above 1-K-per-game once before, in the 5th tier in 2014-15. 8 years ago, Gateshead made it to the 2014 Conference [National League] play-off final (losing to Cambridge United). Gateshead return to the National League in 2022-23, after they were demoted into the National League North in 2019 due to financial irregularities.
-Gloucester City AFC. 6th tier. From Gloucestershire. In 2021-22 they returned to Meadow Park in Gloucester after an exile of 13 years (in 4 different locations), and their average attendance increased over 700-per-game, to 1.1 K. Gloucester City have a sharp new badge.
-Hastings United. 8th tier, promoted to 7th tier. From the coast of East Sussex, 40 miles (by road) east of Brighton. Hastings made it to the 3rd Round of the FA Cup in 2012-13. They were drawing 400 per game last time they were in the 7th division (2012-13). Hastings got to 607 per game in 2019-20, and were in first place by 3 pts, when the season was abandoned due to COVID in March 2020. Hastings then doubled their crowd-size last season, drawing 1.2-K per game, and won the Isthmian South East by 13 pts.
-Macclesfield FC. A new Phoenix-club. 9th tier, promoted to 8th tier. Are playing at Moss Rose (the former home of the defunct Macclesfield Town, wound up in September 2020). They drew 3.3-K-per-game in their debut season, winning the 9th-tier North West Counties Football League by 15 points. Macclesfield FC’s average attendance in their first year was higher than the original Macclesfield ever drew {MTFC/MFC attendance history at european-football-statistics.co.uk}.
-Marine AFC. 8th tier, promoted to 7th tier. From Crosby in Merseyside, just north of Liverpool. Marine had reached the 3rd Round of the FA Cup in 2020-21, playing at home v Spurs (Marine were 7 league-levels and 161 league-places below Tottenham, the largest gap between teams in FA Cup history).
-St Albans City. 6th tier. From St Albans in Hertfordshire, located about 10 miles north of the Greater London border, and about 24 miles by road north of central London. St Albans drew above 1-K-per-game once before, in the 5th tier in 2006-07 (which was their only season in the 5th division). St Albans City beat Forest Green Rovers in the FA Cup 1st Round in November 2021. They finished in 9th place in the ’21-22 National League North, but St Albans still drew their best-ever at 1,290 per game.
-Worthing. 7th tier, promoted to 6th tier. From the coast of West Sussex, 14 miles (by road) west of Brighton. Worthing drew 600 a game when they first joined the Isthmian Premier in 2015-16. They got to 892 per game in 2019-20 and were in first by 7 pts, when the season was abandoned due to COVID in March 2020. Last season, Worthing won the league by 10 pts, and averaged 1.3-K (an increase of over 400), and are now a National League South club for the first time.
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Thanks to all at the links below…
-Blank map of English Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Counties, by Nilfanion, at File:English metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties 2010.svg (commons.wikimedia.org).
-Blank relief map of Greater London, by Nilfanion (using UK Ordnance Survey data), at File:Greater London UK relief location map.jpg.
-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_football_league_system#Promotion_and_relegation_rules_for_the_top_eight_levels.
Attendance…
-worldfootball.net (1st division through 4th division).
-nonleaguematters.co.uk (all non-League from 5th division down).
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_football_league_system.
myfootballfacts.com/england_footy/football-league/english-football-pyramid-system.
