With the club already breaking the National League South attendance record twice this season and with only eight home games left, let’s look at what records or targets the club could be looking at.
Yeovil are currently averaging 3,710, the club only need to average 2,301 in their remaining games to break the record. I think this record is being broken with two games to spare (Torquay at home).
If we look North the record attendance in National League North is by York City FC at 7,488 (21 May 2022). It would be nice to beat that as well.
How does this compare to previous seasons?
| Season | League | Number of Home League Games | Average | Total Supporters | 2023/24 vs Percentage Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023/24 | NLS | 15 | 3710 | 55653 | N/A |
| 2022/23 | NLP | 23 | 2730 | 62790 | 36% |
| 2021/22 | NLP | 22 | 2378 | 52316 | 56% |
| 2020/21 | NLP | COVID | COVID | COVID | N/A |
| 2019/20 | NLP | 18 (Covid) | 2951 | 53118 | 26% |
| 2018/19 | EFL 2 | 23 | 2952 | 67896 | 26% |
| 2017/18 | EFL 2 | 23 | 2941 | 67643 | 26% |
| 2016/17 | EFL 2 | 23 | 3566 | 82018 | 4% |
| 2015/16 | EFL 2 | 23 | 3935 | 90505 | -6% |
| 2014/15 | EFL 1 | 23 | 4346 | 99958 | -15% |
Have Yeovil’s attendances grown over the season so far?
Possible Targets
| Slough Town | 3500 |
| Havant & Waterlooville | 3500 |
| Weston-super-Mare | 4500 |
| Welling United | 3500 |
| Chippenham Town | 3750 |
| Torquay United | 7000 |
| Worthing | 4000 |
| Dartford | 5000 |
This would give Yeovil a total of 100,361 fans through the turnstiles this season and an Average League Attendance of 3931.
The club is going great guns. Much of the plaudits need to go to the new owner, bringing back the club to the community and making it feel connected again. The team winning on the pitch has meant more have turned up each week, people like winning teams. Finally the general supporter who have come cheered and helped the team to victory.
Lets get behind the team for the remaining eight games and help get the club over that 100,000 barrier.
Behind this I assume there are cost and revenue analysis. There is also the proportion that attendances contribute to total revenue . My understanding is that can look different for clubs. So one model want fit all.
Adding a trend line in Excel and saying “attendances have improved” is National League South level of analytics. There is an increase from Dover to Hemel (excluding Taunton and Bath) but derby’s and Braintree aside, the opening game attendance has only just been improved on against Hemel. Braintree is still doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Conclusions like “…attendances have improved as the season has progressed” is false, especially after starting with three consecutive decreases. Don’t be afraid of stating the facts just for a positive headline – there are fluctuations throughout the season with peaks and troughs accounting for school holidays and poor weather conditions, but in general attendances have remained consistent (derby’s and Braintree aside) with a range of only 863, but most importantly much improved on our recent clubs history.
It would be interesting to see the trend for just the home supporter attendance. The spikes in the data do seem to have been caused by interest from home fans in a local derby, but also its easier for away fans to go, nearer to where they live.
Probably for this to be seen as truly accurate insights (like in published research), it should be someone impartial commenting on it, or at least 2 people (one yeovil fan, one fan of another team). Maybe a bit positive bias creeping in, affecting the accuracy.
I’m always interested in attendance figures so thank you for taking the time to produce this article. Keep the posts coming and don’t be dissuaded from doing so by a negative review.
Well done, good article. I’d imagine most fans aren’t going to over-analyse the data, to the point where they become critical so well done. If promotion happens, the 6,000+ fans attendances probably have to become a more regular occurrence for Yeovil to be competitive with other teams near top of the National League.