Any football supporter would tell you that a club’s home attendances are usually a reliable indicator of how that year is panning out. Near the bottom towards Christmas, in financial disarray, no faith in the ownership – the gates begin to dwindle as the regime boycott gets underway. Even the true custodians decide they’ve had enough and would rather spend their hard-earned cash elsewhere, longing for days gone by. That ‘throw your season ticket out the car window on the way home from a 1-0 defeat against Crawley’ kind of sentiment.
Because, ultimately, football fans vote with their feet. And since the re-introduction of the much-maligned National League Cup at the beginning of this season, football boycotting has never been more evident. A competition that began in 1979, axed in 2000, has now returned to the delight of, seemingly, very few.
Back in September, on opening night, seven games saw a total attendance figure of 1,834 – an average of 262 supporters per game. You would, somewhat ironically given the average age of some teams in the competition, often find bigger crowds at youth games around the country.
The sparse crowds have continued, even as the tournament has progressed to its more (on paper) exciting stages. Late April saw the ‘showpiece’ final between Sutton United and Leeds Under 21’s (a 2-1 victory for the West Yorkshiremen) attract a grand total of 3,062 supporters – a meagre attendance. Was that really what now former National League Chief Executive Mark Ives and the rest of the board expected? The big final, a season’s work, attracting just three thousand people?
