Average Attendance Analysis

Based on the current season, if you put teams into their leagues based on average attenance alone this is where they would all be. We are up to 14th in the prem, Luton climb into League 1, Wolves high into the Championship, with Pompey close behind. Interesting up to a point I think.

Highlights though that big support by no means guarantees you success, but ourselves, Leeds, Wolves, Shef Utd, Pompey and Luton are clearly batting below the level of our support. It's amazing to compare the great management at Yeovil with the past mismanement at Luton and Pompey.

Prem 1 Manchester United (7) Prem 75171
Prem 2 Arsenal (3) Prem 60017
Prem 3 Newcastle United (9) Prem 50352
Prem 4 Manchester City (4) Prem 47102
Prem 5 Liverpool (2) Prem 44672
Prem 6 Chelsea (1) Prem 41504
Prem 7 Sunderland (18) Prem 40836
Prem 8 Everton (6) Prem 37351
Prem 9 Aston Villa (10) Prem 36626
Prem 10 West Ham United (12) Prem 34253
Prem 11 Tottenham Hotspur (5) Prem 33541
Prem 12 Southampton (8) Prem 29963
Prem 13 Cardiff City (19) Prem 27337
Prem 14 Brighton & Hove Albion (8) Champ 27092
Prem 15 Norwich City (15) Prem 26806
Prem 16 Stoke City (11) Prem 25915
Prem 17 Leeds United (14) Champ 25844
Prem 18 West Bromwich Albion (16) Prem 24964
Prem 19 Fulham (20) Prem 24929
Prem 20 Derby County (3) Champ 24347

Champ 1 Hull City (13) Prem 24158
Champ 2 Leicester City (1) Champ 24111
Champ 3 Crystal Palace (17) Prem 23827
Champ 4 Nottingham Forest (6) Champ 23264
Champ 5 Sheffield Wednesday (16) Champ 21399
Champ 6 Swansea City (14) Prem 20347
Champ 7 Wolverhampton Wndrs (1) Lge1 20001
Champ 8 Reading (7) Champ 19222
Champ 9 Sheffield United (10) Lge1 16975
Champ 10 Queens Park Rangers (4) Champ 16772
Champ 11 Ipswich Town (9) Champ 16526
Champ 12 Charlton Athletic (22) Champ 16439
Champ 13 Middlesbrough (13) Champ 16016
Champ 14 Bolton Wanderers (17) Champ 15862
Champ 15 Watford (11) Champ 15471
Champ 16 Portsmouth (19) Lge2 15236
Champ 17 Blackburn Rovers (10) Champ 15160
Champ 18 Wigan Athletic (5) Champ 15138
Champ 19 Birmingham City (19) Champ 15037
Champ 20 Huddersfield Town (15) Champ 14332
Champ 21 Bradford City (12) Lge1 14244
Champ 22 Blackpool (18) Champ 14112
Champ 23 Burnley (2) Champ 13115
Champ 24 Bristol City (16) Lge1 11736

Lge1 1 Barnsley (24) Champ 11546
Lge1 2 Millwall (21) Champ 10982
Lge1 3 Preston North End (4) Lge1 10309
Lge1 4 AFC Bournemouth (12) Champ 9689
Lge1 5 Doncaster Rovers (20) Champ 8722
Lge1 6 Milton Keynes Dons (7) Lge1 8412
Lge1 7 Rotherham United (5) Lge1 8389
Lge1 8 Swindon Town (9) Lge1 8052
Lge1 9 Brentford (2) Lge1 7268
Lge1 10 Plymouth Argyle (9) Lge2 7064
Lge1 11 Luton Town (1) Conf 6903
Lge1 12 Yeovil Town (23) Champ 6663
Lge1 13 Port Vale (11) Lge1 6527
Lge1 14 Peterborough United (6) Lge1 6415
Lge1 15 Chesterfield (1) Lge2 6184
Lge1 16 Bristol Rovers (18) Lge2 6146
Lge1 17 Gillingham (13) Lge1 6120
Lge1 18 Oxford United (6) Lge2 5972
Lge1 19 Southend United (7) Lge2 5816
Lge1 20 Shrewsbury Town (23) Lge1 5549
Lge1 21 Leyton Orient (3) Lge1 5485
Lge1 22 Notts County (24) Lge1 5445
Lge1 23 Tranmere Rovers (19) Lge1 4857
Lge1 24 Walsall (8) Lge1 4849

Lge2 1 Crewe Alexandra (22) Lge1 4779
Lge2 2 Northampton Town (23) Lge2 4324
Lge2 3 Oldham Athletic (18) Lge1 4322
Lge2 4 Carlisle United (20) Lge1 4204
Lge2 5 AFC Wimbledon (15) Lge2 4142
Lge2 6 Scunthorpe United (2) Lge2 3751
Lge2 7 Exeter City (21) Lge2 3668
Lge2 8 Hartlepool United (10) Lge2 3665
Lge2 9 York City (8) Lge2 3654
Lge2 10 Colchester United (17) Lge1 3639
Lge2 11 Newport (14) Lge2 3571
Lge2 12 Grimsby Town (6) Conf 3443
Lge2 13 Wycombe Wanderers (20) Lge2 3379
Lge2 14 Crawley Town (14) Lge1 3272
Lge2 15 Mansfield Town (16) Lge2 3212
Lge2 16 Wrexham (17) Conf 3161
Lge2 17 Cambridge United (3) Conf 3140
Lge2 18 Cheltenham Town (11) Lge2 3086
Lge2 19 Bury (17) Lge2 2991
Lge2 20 Stevenage (21) Lge1 2858
Lge2 21 Fleetwood Town (4) Lge2 2745
Lge2 22 Rochdale (3) Lge2 2730
Lge2 23 Torquay United (24) Lge2 2685
Lge2 24 Burton (5) Lge2 2653

Conf 1 Lincoln City (15) Conf 2342
Conf 2 Coventry City (15) Lge1 2251
Conf 3 Chester (20) Conf 2237
Conf 4 Kidderminster Harriers (8) Conf 2053
Conf 5 Aldershot Town (21) Conf 1899
Conf 6 Dagenham & Redbridge (13) Lge2 1850
Conf 7 Morecambe (12) Lge2 1847
Conf 8 Barnet (7) Conf 1750
Conf 9 Hereford United (18) Conf 1659
Conf 10 Accrington Stanley (22) Lge2 1569
Conf 11 Macclesfield Town (16) Conf 1531
Conf 12 Halifax Town (5) Conf 1442
Conf 13 Woking (14) Conf 1410
Conf 14 Nuneaton Town (4) Conf 1233
Conf 15 Dartford (22) Conf 1167
Conf 16 Forest Green Rovers (11) Conf 1156
Conf 17 Southport (19) Conf 1020
Conf 18 Braintree Town (12) Conf 996
Conf 19 Salisbury (10) Conf 964
Conf 20 Tamworth (23) Conf 963
Conf 21 Alfreton Town (2) Conf 791
Conf 22 Welling United (13) Conf 767
Conf 23 Gateshead FC (9) Conf 720
Conf 24 Hyde (24) Conf 629

Interesting stuff - thanks for posting.

Season ticket sales would be interesting, I recall someone saying we were 9th this year nationally......

You've got to hand it to Burnley. 13k attendances and looking at automatic promotion.

But is that comparing pretendances - i.e. the new marketing-friendly "number of tickets sold"methodology - with real attendances as they've always been published, i.e. how many people were actually there? I doubt it's always comparing apples with apples.

Same probably applies to all clubs, so whilst our "real" attendance may be (for example) 10% lower than official, so would everyone else's so we'd still be about the same position in the "league table"

gazingdown said:

Same probably applies to all clubs, so whilst our "real" attendance may be (for example) 10% lower than official, so would everyone else's so we'd still be about the same position in the "league table"

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That's not the case - certainly when not comparing the Albion with most other Championship clubs - where our no shows are above average.

This is due to the large number of season ticket holders we have. If you buy a ticket for a specific game you are almost certainly going to attend the game. If you buy a season ticket you are likely to miss the odd game.

I'd imagine our percentage of no shows is on a par with those Premier League who regularly play to sell out crowds and also have large number of season ticket holders.

Are there any league rules about attendance and pretendance figures does anybody know? Because we're clearly not being told how many people are in the ground. And the turnstiles still click, so its a known figure, just not a publicly published figure for whatever reason.

Tom Hark said:

Are there any league rules about attendance and pretendance figures does anybody know? Because we're clearly not being told how many people are in the ground. And the turnstiles still click, so its a known figure, just not a publicly published figure for whatever reason.

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The turnstile I use beeps.

And after 3 years, I STILL quite regularly put my card in the wrong beeper and have to scramble round to the one I've activated, with various stewards doing jazz-hands at me.

Easy 10 said:

The turnstile I use beeps.

And after 3 years, I STILL quite regularly put my card in the wrong beeper and have to scramble round to the one I've activated, with various stewards doing jazz-hands at me.

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I love the way the scanner goes red and still lets you through.

1. The Spurs figure is wrong, it's 35,921 not 33,541. They are just above West Ham.
2. Fair play to Pompey, that is a big number for a club deep in the bowels of League 2.

Tom Hark said:

Are there any league rules about attendance and pretendance figures does anybody know? Because we're clearly not being told how many people are in the ground. And the turnstiles still click, so its a known figure, just not a publicly published figure for whatever reason.

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I'm pretty sure all premier league clubs announce tickets sold but not necessarily all league clubs. We only started doing that 2 seasons ago.

Tom Hark said:

Are there any league rules about attendance and pretendance figures does anybody know? Because we're clearly not being told how many people are in the ground. And the turnstiles still click, so its a known figure, just not a publicly published figure for whatever reason.

Click to expand...

If you read Barber, this is something that he addresses regularly. The figure announced is tickets sold and distributed (for the FL, sponsors, etc), as this is the standard figure that features across all clubs. It's the figure that is used as a measure for all 92 clubs that are listed above.
Ask yourself this: why would Barber, or the club, want to spend its time releasing more than one figure? And why would it want to release a figure that is a lower figure that actually casts the club in lesser light?
I understand that you and plenty of other NSCers are interested in knowing this figure, but I think Barber is right not to, firstly, because it's not good marketing and, secondly, because he's got better things to do with his time.

Machiavelli said:

Ask yourself this: why would Barber, or the club, want to spend its time releasing more than one figure? And why would it want to release a figure that is a lower figure that actually casts the club in lesser light?

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Quite right. Barber should just get them to announce an attendance of 70,000 every game. It's as fictional as the current pretendance scheme of course but at least it doesn't cast the club in a "lesser light", whatever on earth that might mean.

Machiavelli said:

If you read Barber, this is something that he addresses regularly. The figure announced is tickets sold and distributed (for the FL, sponsors, etc), as this is the standard figure that features across all clubs. It's the figure that is used as a measure for all 92 clubs that are listed above.
Ask yourself this: why would Barber, or the club, want to spend its time releasing more than one figure? And why would it want to release a figure that is a lower figure that actually casts the club in lesser light?
I understand that you and plenty of other NSCers are interested in knowing this figure, but I think Barber is right not to, firstly, because it's not good marketing and, secondly, because he's got better things to do with his time.

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attendance

1.1 [COUNT NOUN] The number of people present at a particular place or event

Tom Hark said:

attendance

1.1 [COUNT NOUN] The number of people present at a particular place or event:[/B][/I]

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Incredible that this should need pointing out but GPWM. I despair.

Pavilionaire said:

2. Fair play to Pompey, that is a big number for a club deep in the bowels of League 2.

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The longer they remain in the bowels of League Two, the more these 'amazing' fans will realise that their utopian vision of a club owned by the fans is only ever sustainable at that level. The harsh reality is that, in order to push up the league, you need massive investment, and even then, that's no guarantee. Westwood will be clanging his bell in a 75% empty ground next season.

Man of Harveys said:

Incredible that this should need pointing out but GPWM. I despair.

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Heaven forbid there should ever be a fire alarm at the Amex forcing evacuation:

Fire Officer: 'Right, is everybody accounted for?'

Safety Officer: 'No officer, we appear to be four thousand short'

I wish that my life was so easy and stress free that I could be bothered to get my knickers in a twist over the fact that the club announce tickets sold rather than true attendance.

I know some jest about it but others seem completely hung about the fact that the figure is tickets sold rather than people through the turnstile. Get a life because it has been done to death. We all know that the 'attendence' figure is tickets sold and yes, maybe they should announce it as 'tickets sold for todays game were xxxxx with xxxx number of away fans' but does it really make a difference?

The club know how many are in the ground and on match day the relevance of that is in respect of concessions, programme sales, safety etc.

nwgull said:

I wish that my life was so easy and stress free that I could be bothered to get my knickers in a twist over the fact that the club announce tickets sold rather than true attendance.

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seconded.