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By Bill Turianski on the 27th of May 2025; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Attendance figures…
-us.soccerway.com/national/england/premier-league/20242025/regular-season (Average attendances last season from the 1st division through the 4th division.)
-nonleaguematters.co.uk. (Average attendances last season from the 5th division to the 9th level.)
-(Note: in English football, the last 5 seasons of full attendance have been: 2018-19, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, and 2024-25. The gap being the two seasons that were COVID-affected: 2019-20 and 2020-21. In non-League football, those 2 COVID-affected seasons break down to the following…2019-20 season: COVID-shortened [up to mid-March 2020] for levels 5 and 6, and fully COVID-abandoned for all non-League levels below the 6th; 2020-21 season: fully COVID-abandoned for all of non-League football [from the 5th level on down].)
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The map
The map shows all clubs in the English football system which drew above 1,000 per-game in 2024-25 (home domestic league matches): 156 clubs, including 64 non-League clubs.
Also, there is an inset-map for all the clubs drawing above 1-K-per-game from Greater London-plus-the-immediate surrounding area (18 clubs from Greater London + 3 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 4 things:
A) 2024-25 League-level.
B) 2024-25 league-finish.
C) Champions League Group Stage qualification [6 teams qualified for the 2025-26 UEFA Champions League (text in blue)].
D) promotion-or-relegation, if applicable (text in green for promotion / text in red for relegation).
On the right-hand side of the map-page are 2 charts showing the English football league system, aka the Pyramid. {See this, English football league system (en.wikipedia.org).}
When I first made this map, it was six years ago, for the 2018-19 season. Then, the map showed 133 clubs, including 41 non-League clubs. So in the space of half a decade, the amount of non-League clubs drawing over one thousand-per-game has increased by 23 (from 41 non-League clubs to 64 non-League clubs). That is but one indication of how non-League football attendance is on the rise.
Four of the 156 clubs were clubs which were not drawing above 1-K-per-game in the last five seasons of full attendance…8th-tier club Hednesford Town; 7th-tier clubs Kettering Town, and Merthyr Town; and 6th-tier club Truro City. One of these clubs has never drawn above 1,000 per-game before: the newly-promoted Truro City, of Cornwall.
Truro City FC.
Background pattern above, from: footballkitarchive.com/truro-city-2024-25-home-kit.
Truro City are from Truro, in Cornwall, at the south-western tip of England. The population of Truro is 23,000. Truro is located, by road, 284 miles (457 km) WSW of London; and Truro is located, by road, 56 miles (89 km) SW of Plymouth. Truro City’s nickname is the Tinners (or Tinmen), in reference to the tin mining history of Cornwall. Truro City wear red with black (Truro formerly wore white-with-black-and-gold). Truro City have just won the ’24-25 National League South, and will join the National League next season, as the first club from Cornwall to make it to the 5th division.
There are two things that stand out about Truro City. First of all, out there in Cornwall, Truro City are one of the the most isolated football clubs in England. Plymouth Argyle, of Devon, are well known for being the most isolated club in the Football League, and Truro is an hour further south-west than Plymouth. Next season, the longest road-trip in the top 5 divisions in English football will be in the National League, when Truro City plays Gateshead (of Tyne and Wear): 455 miles (732 km).
And, secondly, 20 years ago, Truro City began a promotion run that is a record in England: they won 5 promotions in 6 seasons (including 4 consecutive promotions). From 2005 to 2011, Truro City advanced from the 11th tier to the 6th tier, going from the South Western League (11) directly to the Western League D1 (10) directly to the Western League Premier (9) directly to the Southern D1-SW (8) directly to the Southern Premier (7), then 2 seasons later, to the Conference South (6), in 2010-11. Property developer Kevin Heaney was behind the success of Truro City then. He believed that Truro City could be a League Two (4th tier) club. But midway through Truro City’s rise, the global economic crisis of 2008 hit, and four years later, the club was broke.
In their first season in the 6th tier in 2011-12, Truro City had finished a respectable 14th, and drew 578 per game, their then-highest figure. But Kevin Heaney stepped down as chair in August 2012 after he was declared bankrupt, and the club went into administration, and Truro City barely avoided a winding up order in October 2012. Truro City were relegated back to the Southern League in April 2013, only drawing 377 per game. The club’s Treyew Road ground (see photos below) was sold to developers in 2014. Truro returned to the 6th tier two seasons later, in 2015.
In August 2018, the club were forced to vacate their ground by the new developers, and had to play their home matches two hours and 84 miles away at Torquay United’s Plainmoor. Truro City were able to return to Treyew Road (temporarily) in 2019. In March 2019, Penzance-based Championship rugby union club Cornish Pirates bought Truro City. Their aim was to combine with Truro City in securing a new sports venue for the two clubs (a project called the Stadium for Cornwall, which never secured funding).
For 4 seasons in the 6th tier, Truro City drew in the 400s; they were relegated back to the Southern League, again, in 2019.
In January 2021 Truro City had to finally leave Treyew Road ground for good (it was torn down and replaced with a Lidl supermarket).
Thus began Truro City’s nomadic phase. (See map, in illustration below.) They secured a groundshare 55 miles up the road, in Devon, at Plymouth Parkway FC‘s Bolitho Park. Truro City played two full seasons there, and under manager Paul Wooton, won promotion to the National League South, after play-off wins over Poole Town 1 (on penalties), then Bracknell Town (away, winning 2-3).
But in the following season, in February 2024, their deal at Bolitho Park was cut short. Truro could then only find a venue at Taunton Town’s Wordsworth Drive, up in Somerset (121 miles away). Then in late March 2024, due to pitch issues at Wordsworth Drive, Truro City had play the remainder of the 2023-24 season at Gloucester City’s Meadow Park, all the way up in Gloucestershire, 3-and-a-half hours and 195 miles (314 km) away. Truro finished in 18th place in the National League South.
As recounted in this article at bbc.com/sport…‘A hardy band of around 30 to 40 fans travelled to many of their games during their nomadic years – the players knew them all by name and any member of the squad that did not have a pint in the clubhouse with them after a game was given a fine.’ (-Brent Pilnick, BBC Sport England).
Meanwhile, in November, 2023, Truro City were purchased by a Canadian consortium called Ontario Inc, with former Cornwall RLFC owner Eric Perez as the club’s chairman & CEO. With the money that had been ringfenced from the sale of Treyew Road, Truro City finally began construction of a new ground. Truro City finished a decent enough 16th place in the National League South in ’23-24, 9 points above relegation. In May 2024, manager Paul Wotton signed with the bigger club up the road – Torquay United. But Truro found an experienced replacement in John Askey (who had led Macclesfield Town back into the Football League in 2018, and had led York City back into the 5th division in 2022).
In August 2024, after 4 years without a ground, Truro City returned home, to their new ground and facilities 3 miles west of Truro, in Threemilestone: Truro City Stadium, capacity 3,600 (300 seated). There was an attendance of 2,676 when Truro City Stadium opened, on 10 August 2025 (a 1-2 loss to Dorking Wanderers).
At the end of August 2024, Truro had 4 wins and a draw in 6 matches, and they remained at or near the top of the table for the rest of the season. By mid-September, Truro City were regularly drawing 1.5-K. By March 2025, it was apparent that the National League South had a half dozen title-contenders: Truro, Torquay, Worthing, Eastbourne Borough, Boreham Wood, and Dorking.
Going into the last matchday, all six of those clubs could have won the title. And so on 26 April 2025, in front of a packed house of 3,597 at Truro City Stadium, Truro City beat St Albans City 5-2, and claimed the title on goal difference from Torquay United (Truro w/ +33 GD, Torquay w/ +31 GD). Here are the highlights of the match, HIGHLIGHTS | Truro City vs St Albans City | National League South | 26th April 2025. League top scorer Tyler Harvey’s goal (with an assist by GK Dan Lavercombe), put Truro City up 3-0, after just 10 minutes (see screenshot below). Truro City – and Cornwall – were in the National League for the first time. Truro City drew 1,812 per game in 2024-25, which is 1,200-per-game more than they ever drew before.
From bbc.com/sport, Truro City: From homeless club to league champions (by Brent Pilnick).
Photo and Image credits above –
-Truro Cathedral at sunset, photo by Alamay at alamay.com. -Entrance to Treyew Road ground [photo circa 2015], photo unattributed at thenonleaguefootballpaper.com. -Treyew Road [photo circa 2012], unattributed at footballgroundmap.com. -Blank relief map [south-west of England], by Nilfanion at File:England relief location map.jpg. -Truro City Stadium, photo by Truro City Football Club at facebook.com. -Paul Wotton, photo by REX Features via bbc.com/sport. John Askey, photo by Colin Bradbury at trurocity.co.uk. -Tyler Harvey, photo by Colin Bradbury at trurocity.co.uk. -26 April 2025 Truro City 5-2 St Albans City; attendance 3,597; screenshot of 3rd goal (10′, Tyler Harvey), from video uploaded by St Albans City FC at youtube.com. -Truro City 5 St Albans City 2 – Celebration Gallery, photo by Gareth Davies at trurocity.co.uk/[Gallery].
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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.
-English football league system (en.wikipedia.org).
-us.soccerway.com/national/england/premier-league/20242025/regular-season (Average attendances last season from the 1st division to the 4th division.)
-nonleaguematters.co.uk. (Average attendances last season from the 5th division to the 9th level.)
