Football attendances: How did Crawley and Brighton fare last season?

Brighton start their campaign this evening at home to Nottingham Forest, with the club expecting 25,000 fans at the AMEX. Crawley head to the Kassam Stadium to face Oxford United tomorrow.

The Championship has seen a 7% increase of fans attending games, with a whopping 9,860,782 fans coming throughout the season. There was a six percent rise in League Two with 2,601,227 people going to games. This was much better than League One, where they have seen a five percent decrease in attendance figures.

Brighton and Derby had the highest average attendances in the Championship. Portsmouth, Luton Town and Plymouth Argyle had the best attendances home and away in League Two.

Brighton were a part of the highest attendance of last season in the Football League. Their final day match against Middlesbrough up at the Riverside Stadium brought in 33,463. Portsmouth had all ten top League Two crowds last season, with Fratton Park being full most weeks.

The Red Devil’s highest attendance of the season was 5,744 against Coventry on the final game of the season with Brighton reaching 28,890 against Norwich in April.

The Seagulls had an average attendance of 25,649 this was a five percent decrease on the season before but they ranked third in the report. Crawley had the lowest average attendance in League One, with just 3,117, a 11% drop from the previous year.

Both Brighton and Crawley had lower season ticket numbers from the campaign before. Crawley had a 39% decrease with just 1,165 fans renewing or purchasing season tickets. Brighton had 21,245, an eight percent drop.

On average, 1,041 Brighton fans travelled up and down the country while 140 Crawley fans made their way to games. On Average 464 visited the Checkatrade.com Stadium with 1491 visiting the AMEX.

Fulham’s Craven Cottage was a popular ground for away fans to travel to last season, with an average of 2788 fans. For League Two, Crawley’s opening opponents Oxford had an average of 948 fans travelling to the Kassam Stadium.

All together last season 589,937 fans watched Brighton and 71,700 for Crawley.

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