Friday 10 March 2017

As 'CROWDED HOUSES,' my look at attendances in European football, nears completion, here's another extract. This time it's the most successful fourth tier in the world, what started out as England's Division Four in 1958.

ENGLAND’S FOURTH
There has been a national fourth division (now bearing the ridiculous ‘EFL League Two’ title) in England since 1958 when the two existing regional third levels were merged, with the top half in each forming a national third division and the bottom half the fourth. Perhaps because of the way this was done, with some clubs falling into the bottom league very narrowly - in the Third North there was just two points difference between 12th (the cut-off point for the Third Division) and 17th - there has been a generous four promotion places available right from the start.

Nowadays the first three of the twenty-four teams go up automatically and clubs from 4th-7th play-off for the final spot. There has been automatic relegation from this level (and the Football League structure as a whole) since 1987 and currently the bottom two clubs go down automatically.

This makes for what is usually a highly competitive league, with many current members promoted from non-league in recent seasons. Highest crowd in 2015-16 was 18,746 for Portsmouth’s 2-1 defeat at home to Northampton Town while the lowest of 1,026 watched Morecambe defeat Dagenham & Redbridge 1-0.

The play-offs attracted six figures – just. 100,093 watched the five matches for an average of 20,019. There were huge disparities between the two semi-finals as the two best supported teams in the division – Portsmouth and Plymouth Argyle – drew 32,633 to their two games while the other tie involved the second worst supported team in the league – Accrington Stanley – and another not particularly well supported - AFC Wimbledon. Their two games were watched by a total of 9,504. AFC Wimbledon’s 2-0 victory over Argyle in the final attracted 57,956 to Wembley – almost 7,000 more than the League One play-off Final.

The initial Fourth Division season set an average of 7,698, which remains the best ever. The arbitrary cut-off for entry (effectively relegation) saw a diverse membership. Ten of the initial twenty-four clubs are no longer league members but another seven have since played in the top flight – three of them within a decade of starting out in the fourth tier. Three of the seven future top tier clubs have played in Europe.

The division established some notable attendance feats in its early years. In 1960-61 Crystal Palace established an all-time average high of 19,092. A crowd of 37,774 for their Good Friday 2-0 home defeat by Millwall set an individual match record for the division which at the time was also a world record for a fourth tier game – it has subsequently been overtaken by games in Brazil, Scotland and English fourth level play-offs.

Palace, along with Peterborough United and Oldham Athletic, averaged higher than any third tier club in England that season – a feat repeated by Brighton in 1964-65. The smallest ever crowd was 625 for Scarborough’s 4-2 home win over Wrexham on a Friday evening in December 1990 but it wasn’t even the league’s post-war worst as a third division match between Rochdale and Cambridge United was attended by just 588 in 1973-74. In fact the lowest level’s smallest gate is only the fifth worst in almost 130 years of league football. The worst seasonal average was 2,519 in 1984-85.

The 2016 play-off Final saw the second largest crowd ever for a fourth tier league game. Bristol Rovers and Shrewsbury Town established the record in the 2007 play-off Final when 61,589 – a new world record at this level - saw Rovers win 3-1. In 2015-16 the average came close to hitting the 5,000 mark last achieved in 2004. At 4,921 it was the second best figure since 1972. Occupancy was almost half, at 49.72%. It was a higher rate than thirty-four top divisions in Europe.

Despite the constant struggle to survive for many clubs, the English set-up has been a success over many decades. In 2015-16 it had a higher average attendance than thirty-two European top tiers and has been the best supported in Europe, if not the world, at this level every season since its inception bar one – 2012-13 when Rangers played in Scotland’s bottom tier.

2015-16 AVERAGES WITH % OCCUPANCY RATE IN BRACKETS
16443 (81.81) Portsmouth
9057 (55.27) Plymouth Argyle
8226 (80.44) Luton Town
8096 (67.40) Bristol Rovers
7211 (57.69) Oxford United
5332 (57.51) Leyton Orient
5279 (68.98) Northampton Town
5262 (54.72) Cambridge United
4860 (24.02) Notts County
4838 (26.95) Carlisle United
4169 (88.33) AFC Wimbledon
4008 (45.39) Exeter City
3984 (38.68) Wycombe Wanderers
3936 (40.72) Yeovil Town
3890 (49.66) Hartlepool United
3439 (42.01) Mansfield Town
3349 (48.40) Stevenage
3218 (38.98) York City
2731 (38.95) Newport County
2405 (40.11) Crawley Town
2358 (45.06) Barnet
1979 (32.56) Dagenham & Redbridge
1951 (38.58) Accrington Stanley
1572 (24.27) Morecambe


SEASONAL AVERAGES LEAGUE TWO
1958-59            7698
1959-60            7210
1960-61            7016
1961-62            6165
1962-63            5874
1963-64            5488
1964-65            6347
1965-66            5462
1966-67            5412
1967-68            6070
1968-69            5569
1969-70            5296
1970-71            5006
1971-72            4961
1972-73            3763
1973-74            3925
1974-75            3483
1975-76            3731
1976-77            3838
1977-78            4222
1978-79            4182
1979-80            4258
1980-81            3074    
1981-82            3621    
1982-83            2809
1983-84            2817
1984-85            2519
1985-86            2551
1986-87            3108
1987-88            3211
1988-89            3291
1989-90            3426
1990-91            3222    
1991-92            3393
1992-93            3339
1993-94            3417
1994-95            3374
1995-96            3560
1996-97            3373
1997-98            3201
1998-99            3813
1999-00            3916
2000-01            3915
2001-02            4379
2002-03            4458
2003-04            5390
2004-05            4502
2005-06            4194
2006-07            4133
2007-08            4337
2008-09            4175
2009-10            3855
2010-11            4175
2011-12            4406
2012-13            4389
2013-14            4351
2014-15            4686
2015-16            4921


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