Non league club Beaconsfield Town makes a plea this week after months of low crowds despite having a stadium upgrade to tempt in spectators.
The Buckinghamshire side, play their football in the Southern League Premier Division South (seventh tier), sit 14th, and are located near a motorway service station (named one of the best in England), handy and helpful you’d think?
The club play their games at Holloways Park, but tend to get an attendance of around 100, and more recently that figure drifted into the 70 mark.
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It comes with Beaconsfield splashing out just short of £1m on getting their home improved over the summer and autumn months of 2021, which saw them play 22 of their first 25 games of the season away from home, state the Bucks Free Press.
The ground has a new 3G pitch and floodlights as well as other improvements with a bar, burger van, and ‘funky merchandise’ up for grabs.
Peter Bromage, the club’s vice-chairman, said on why the club could be struggling for a rise in numbers: “I think part of it is historic.
“Beaconsfield as a club has been associated with Slough Town which was all good, but people didn’t really see Beaconsfield as a Beaconsfield club.
“It was a combination of Beaconsfield and Slough.
“When we took over the club in 2016, we broke with the Beaconsfield/Slough connection and we reformed as Beaconsfield Town.
What are average attendances like at nearby clubs?
Wycombe Wanderers – 5,500
Slough Town – 650
Chesham United – 600
Risborough Rangers – 200
Flackwell Heath – 400 (charity game)
One game in the Berks and Bucks Cup this week saw Long Crendon take on Wycombe Wanderers at Thame United (24 miles form Beaconsfield), with a stunning attendance of nearly 2,000, setting a new record.
Beaconsfield are also in this season’s county cup, and have been drawn MK Dons in the quarter-final stage of the competition on the 1st of March.
Thame get around 121 on average at a league below Beaconsfield.
Despite the Covid pandemic, there has been an increase in non league attendances up and down the country.
Peter continued: “Our goal is to make this into a community interest club.
“We’ve got a bit of way to go, but we’re focusing on growing our fanbase and getting involved in the local community.
“We have great facilities, we’re always busy with functions, parties, weddings, wakes, so we’re always busy.
“However, now we have made an investment in the ground, pitch, and the facilities available, we are desperately keen to grow our fan base.
“We have our educational academy here for girls and boys aged 16 to 18 where they can study for a BTEC in sports, where they can play football every day which is always very popular.
“We play at a high level which is step three in the Non League pyramid, and we operate off a limited budget for our players who are paid, and we can fight above our weight in that regard.
“It has been a very expensive project thanks to our chairman’s funding, but the pitch is superb.
“The surrounding of the pitch has been resurfaced and it’s a very comfortable place to come and watch football.
“We also decided to invest in a 3G pitch which is the highest for FIFA’s standards.
“We’ve also introduced the youth section a year ago which gives us youth players from under 12 to under 18, and we’ve introduced a reserve side.
“And next season, we will be introducing an under sevens to under 11s sides.
“All of this is about generating interest from children to adults, and we’re hoping that by engaging more within the local schools and community, people will attend our games.
“We’ve developed a relationship with Beaconsfield School, and they come to our ground three times to week with different age groups who train with our coaches, and we hope this can be a long-term relationship.
“We’re hoping to get into other schools to let people know that we are actually here because, people who live Beaconsfield don’t even know where we are.
“They know where the services are, but they don’t necessarily know where we are and that is something that we need to improve on.
“My challenge is to try and get our numbers up from the poor numbers we have at the moment, to what ones we would expect.
“We play teams such as Truro and Taunton and the latter will have around 800 to 1,000 people at each of their home games.
“So you can imagine the difference that will make for a football club, and how that could be used for playing staff or facilities.”
October 2021 saw the club also have former England player Stuart Pearce in to reopen the stadium, so it seems like they are trying everything to bring in new fans, but it just isn’t working somehow.
As a football family and if anyone is in the area, imagine if you could turn up just to one game or bring a friend, give the club a much needed boost and feel good factor.
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