BY IAN BROWN

SOMETHING is stirring in the lower reaches of the UK Football Pyramid, and it is mighty good!

In difficult times it seems the great British sporting public is at last looking outside the Premier League for their live sporting fix!

Indeed as Premier League clubs increasingly struggle to fill their stadiums on match day, attendance figures at non- league games continue to climb- sky-rocketing in recent holiday games.

It seems Covid-weary fans seeking a football game to watch have voted with their feet in their thousands for lower league fare- Northern Premier League games alone saw four figure attendances a commonplace as over 30000 in total watched over the Christmas week -end, whilst Northern Counties Macclesfield crammed 4353 inside Moss Rose to see them play Winsford United and County’s Boxing Day gate of 8896 was not even our top gate of the season.

So why is this happening?

Yes, people are reacting to being cooped up for nigh on 2 years, but there is another element at work and that concerns the quality of the product on offer and unquestionably, in my view, particularly in the National League, but not exclusively, the football offered up by non-league clubs is very watchable indeed- many TV football fans having obtained a taste via BT coverage have now opted to watch a live game.

In these circumstances fans have gone local – ‘Your Town Your Team’ coming into play eager to watch VAR free football.

County are in a prime position to take advantage of this, and are working hard to attract new supporters to Edgeley Park via Ticketing Schemes including the scheme sponsored by the Supporters Cooperative.

The County team are playing some excellent football – we urge you to come down to Edgeley Park and share the excitement!