A Premier attendance round up

The 24-25 Pitching In Isthmian League season was an enormous success, with increased attendances in every division. Overall, our total attendance across the league was 728,327, increased from 616,028, and our average attendance was up to 394 when you divide the total by our 1848 matches. 

Continuing to look across the entire League, it’s also heartening to note that the number of matches which welcomed more than a thousand spectators also went up. We had ten attendances over three thousand, thirty which exceeded two thousand, and one hundred and thirty four which exceeded one thousand. Last season the number which exceeded an attendance of one thousand was one hundred and three.

If we were to look at the top thirty attendances from across the league, Billericay Town appear as hosts on one occasion, and as visitors on another. Dulwich Hamlet appear as hosts seventeen times, and as visitors once. Dover Athletic appear as hosts three times and as visitors three times, Chatham Town appear as hosts three times and as visitors on one occasion, whilst Horsham appear as hosts twice and as visitors once. Cray Wanderers, Folkestone Invicta and Dartford also make an appearance from our top flight, whilst the three thousand three hundred who watched Ramsgate take on Margate gave the Rams the sixth highest attendance of the season- the highest attended match outside the Premier Division. Other Step Four clubs appearing in our top thirty are Margate (for the visit of Ramsgate), Guernsey (new ground opening against Westfield), and Deal Town (for the visit of Ramsgate). The two thousand and twenty seven who watched the Rams take on Merstham also feature in our top thirty. 

Here’s the top thirty table from the entire league:

Let’s look particularly, then, at Pitching In Isthmian Premier.

Dulwich Hamlet, as you might expect, dominated our attendance figures- particular credit goes to their supporters given their team didn’t have the best of seasons- but as you can see from the table below, Hamlet didn’t actually host the top attendance of the campaign. That honour went instead to Billericay Town, whose match against Cheshunt on the final Saturday of the regular season brought in 3342- eight more than Hamlet’s top attendance!

There were also places in our table for Dover Athletic, who welcomed 3021 when they hosted…Dulwich Hamlet,  for Chatham Town for their New Years Day derby with Dartford, and for Folkestone Invicta, who hosted Dover in a bonfire night derby.

And here’s our Premier Division Attendance Grid:

It’s also worth us looking at the highest attendance achieved by each of our twenty two clubs, as that demonstrates that thirteen of our top flight clubs managed an attendance over one thousand during the season. It’s perhaps only fair to note that Potters Bar Town played the entire season away from home, sharing temporarily at Kings Langley.

As a measure of how exciting the climax to the season turned out to be, eight of the clubs welcomed their highest attendance of the season in April, as opposed to six in January and five in March- although Dulwich Hamlet experienced the same top number in October, January and March! 

Finally, let’s take a look at the average attendances by club. Hamlet led that table, too, but particular plaudits are due to Cray Wanderers, Chichester City, Cray Valley PM and Dover Athletic, who demonstrated rather dramatic increases!

Thanks for all of your support this season- let’s see if we can do even better in 25-26!

Thanks to Neil Pilcher for the stats!