It was great to see the fans flock in to watch their clubs over the holiday period in the lower leagues of the football pyramid, one big factor is the fixtures are planned so that doubleheader matches are scheduled for the Boxing day and New years day fixtures between local sides, something that has sadly been lost on the Premier League and EFL!
Some of the stand-out attendances were in step 6 in the National League North and South.
Darlington had a record attendance at Blackwell Meadows of 3,059 against Scarborough Athletic who brought 875 fans on Boxing Day and the return fixture today (Jan 2) will see a record-breaking crowd at their Flamingo Land Stadium of 3,205 including 820 travelling Darlo supporters.
Chester FC had 3,007 at their game with Telford on New Year's Day following on from the reverse fixture on boxing day when 2,500 packed out Telford's New Bucks Head stadium.
Also in the same league, Hereford's Edgar Street saw a 3,221 turnout for their boxing day fixture with Kidderminster Harriers and the return match on New years day saw 545 Hereford fans travel to Kiddy making up the attendance of 3,421!
In the National League South
Dartford began the new year in style with an emphatic victory over Ebbsfleet United, as they completed the league double over their local rivals and title contenders with 3,386 in attendance at Princes Park, the boxing day fixture saw an impressive 2,905 at Ebbsfleet.
Also in the same division at the St Albans City v Hemel Hempstead Town 3,107 packed into the Saints Clarence Park!
It's great to see Non-League attendances thriving and the fact they have big derby games over the Christmas period is sadly only something supporters of Premier League and Championship teams can only reminisce about as the days of CPFC v Brighton, Luton v Watford, London derbies and all the other big local rivalries are a thing of the past for one reason or another and the old song of “because of boxing day" is completely redundant.
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