ELITE LEVEL LIMBS FOR US TO SAVOUR
One thousand one hundred and forty two. A respectable crowd for a Non-League match, you might think. And you’d be absolutely right. But what if I told you that the game in question was in the sixth tier of the English football pyramid? Impressive.
What if I then told you that the figure mentioned was merely the away following? Backing away in some trepidation, you’d think I’d taken leave of my senses. But what if I then closed the door, looked you in the eye, raised my voice and clinically explained that the total attendance was a staggering 7,511! I’d deserve to be called a raving maniac, right? Not so. I am, as the kids say, spitting facts. That is the actual number of fans that passed through the turnstiles of Scunthorpe United’s Glanford Park on Saturday the second of
March in the year of our lord 2024 for the fixture against Chester FC in National League North. Stick it in the books, it’s a record for this level (including playoffs), shattering the previous best of 6,311 set by Stockport Clounty v Spennymoor in 2019.
Gusto
National League North, though. Division Six! The Alehouse League, consisting of pub teams, crumbling grounds, and hapless players, all watched by over by one man and his dog.
At least that’s many people’s stereotyped view of Non-League football, and not entirely without reason. Consider that less than a month earlier I made up a relatively significant part of a crowd of 213 at a rain-lashed Peterborough Sports on a Tuesday night to see Chester grind out a 1-1 draw. While those of us in the self-designated away end celebrated our late equaliser with gusto, nobody could have foreseen the tumultuous scenes that would await us in Scunthorpe.
By way of historical comparison, we took more to Glanford Park than the total attendance of my first ever Chester home game at Sealand Road, then in the Football League. Basically we took approximately half our current average home attendance to a club on the other side of the country with no historical rivalry for a game between two teams with little or no realistic chance of winning the title. It’s not an exact science, but this is loosely equivalent to Manchester United taking 35,000 fans to Newcastle. To put it in some perspective, there were 11 National League North matches played that day and 40% of the total attendees were at Scunthorpe. No game in the National League had more fans, and only three in League Two boasted a greater crowd: the Wimbledon v MK Dons grudge match, former Premier League club Swindon v Harrogate, and Accrington Stanley’s fixture in north Wales – and that was bolstered by transitory tourists. Astonishingly, there were even five games in League One with a smaller crowd.
Frenzy
So how did Scunthorpe pull it off ? Designated a Community Day early doors, tickets were reasonably priced, some sections were filled with kids, and the availability of away tickets was tantalisingly drip-fed, the perceived scarcity whipping us up into a frenzy. At one point I wasn’t even planning to go, but had sense talked into me by the shadowy figure known as The Driver, co-star of my award-nominated first book, The Card. To quote Chester manager, Calum McIntyre: “The Driver is a legend. The book is nothing without The Driver.” Ultimately, I thought if The Driver can make it from the South of France, I should be able to manage it from London. Besides, someone had to pick him up and drop him off at Stansted. And yes, you guessed it, I’m the driver now.
And so two berks hit the North, overtaking the team bus on the outskirts of Scunny before repairing to a nearby hostelry. I’m normally happy to roll out of the pub into the ground at five to three, but this had to be savoured, and I insisted we forgo a second pint to take in the scenes, greeted by a sea of faces from all eras. Elite level limbs, players embraced, joyous carnage during a preposterous 2-2 draw, truly an away day for the ages. Anyone know the attendance?