There are loads of ways of measuring the popularity of things. Attendance, followers, YouGov polls, but how on Earth do you really measure the popularity of lower league football in the UK?
I’ve just returned from a much-needed 10 days lying by a pool in Lanzarote and it dawned on me, I’ve not seen a single kid (or indeed adult) decked out in a Man United, City or Chelsea shirt. In fact there’s a scarcity of people in Premier League gear whatsoever.
What I have seen is a bloke in a Hartlepool United shirt, kids in Spain shirts (fair enough it’s Spain and they’ve just won the World Cup), Wigan Athletic, Hibernian, either (but probably not) Darmstadt or Fiorentina, Al Ittihad, Leeds United, Peterborough United, Ipswich Town, Newport County, Lanzarote, four sun lounger’s covered in Rangers towels and a bloke with a Dunston UTS FA Vase Winners 2012 tattoo.
26/27 resolutions: Attempting to attend a home game for every Berkshire football club
To be fair, I’ve also seen a nostalgic Arsenal shirt with ‘Henry 14’ on the back and a kid with a ‘Klinsmann 18’ retro Spurs shirt – but are we still counting them as a big club?
All this is a far cry from pre-Covid poolside holidays when you couldn’t move for Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal, West Ham, United and Liverpool.
What does it mean? I’m smart enough to know 10 days in one hotel on a Spanish island isn’t a large enough sample size to come to much of a conclusion at all, but if
I sincerely doubt they care, the big clubs in England will always fill their stadiums and sell their overpriced replica kit. But if I was a fan of a Premier League football club, I might just be a tiny bit concerned about kids connecting far more deeply with clubs that aren’t them.
If I was a Poolie, I’d be absolutely delighted.
