The volume of a teams away following is often used as measure for the “size” of a club and is heavily debated amongst football fans. But their are many factors that influence this, not least their proximity to other clubs.
With the Football league last week releasing statistics showing the average away attendance for each team playing in the championship (shown below), I looked at whether this was effected by the clubs accessibility to other clubs and how long fans were spending travelling.
| Team | Away Attendance |
|---|---|
| Leeds | 2807 |
| Middlesbrough | 2515 |
| Sheffield Wednesday | 2510 |
| Derby | 2125 |
| Burnley | 1911 |
| Birmingham | 1779 |
| Brighton | 1658 |
| Preston | 1506 |
| Wolves | 1470 |
| Nottingham Forest | 1443 |
| Hull | 1393 |
| Ipswich | 1383 |
| Bristol City | 1263 |
| QPR | 1204 |
| Huddersfield | 1128 |
| Blackburn | 1106 |
| Brentford | 1073 |
| Rotherham | 1041 |
| Reading | 1040 |
| Fulham | 988 |
| Bolton | 911 |
| Cardiff | 748 |
| Charlton | 637 |
| MK Dons | 636 |
With Leeds being located in within fairly close proximity to a number of the northern teams, and Leeds railway station being well connected I wanted to look at the whether this contributed to their loyal away following.
So I used the Google Travel API to look at the total time a football fan would spend travelling if they went on public transport to every away game. The results are below.
| Team | Time Spent Travelling |
|---|---|
| Cardiff City | 6 Days 3 Hours 44 Minutes 14 Seconds |
| Brighton and Hove Albion | 6 Days 1 Hours 23 Minutes 36 Seconds |
| Ipswich Town | 5 Days 23 Hours 17 Minutes 34 Seconds |
| Middlesbrough | 5 Days 21 Hours 25 Minutes 26 Seconds |
| Charlton Athletic | 5 Days 11 Hours 18 Minutes 10 Seconds |
| Bristol City | 5 Days 10 Hours 22 Minutes 50 Seconds |
| Hull City | 5 Days 2 Hours 57 Minutes 20 Seconds |
| Fulham | 4 Days 22 Hours 6 Minutes 38 Seconds |
| Burnley | 4 Days 20 Hours 5 Minutes 32 Seconds |
| Reading | 4 Days 19 Hours 58 Minutes 32 Seconds |
| Preston North End | 4 Days 19 Hours 52 Minutes 22 Seconds |
| Queens Park Rangers | 4 Days 18 Hours 44 Minutes 38 Seconds |
| Brentford | 4 Days 18 Hours 13 Minutes 12 Seconds |
| Blackburn Rovers | 4 Days 17 Hours 38 Minutes 16 Seconds |
| Huddersfield Town | 4 Days 11 Hours 55 Minutes 58 Seconds |
| Bolton Wanderers | 4 Days 11 Hours 17 Minutes 36 Seconds |
| Leeds United | 4 Days 7 Hours 2 Minutes 12 Seconds |
| MK Dons | 4 Days 5 Hours 1 Minutes 4 Seconds |
| Sheffield Wednesday | 4 Days 4 Hours 30 Minutes 54 Seconds |
| Wolverhampton Wanderers | 4 Days 0 Hours 30 Minutes 48 Seconds |
| Rotherham United | 3 Days 23 Hours 23 Minutes 6 Seconds |
| Birmingham City | 3 Days 19 Hours 59 Minutes 4 Seconds |
| Nottingham Forest | 3 Days 18 Hours 12 Minutes 6 Seconds |
| Derby County | 3 Days 17 Hours 41 Minutes 6 Seconds |
From this it appears that there is very little correlation between the average away attendance and time spent travelling especially with Middlesbrough’s travel time and attendance being so high.
As a final thought I looked at using the travel times for ranking the teams be the number of “fan hours” spent travelling.
| Team | Fan Hours |
|---|---|
| Middlesbrough | 40 Years 31 Weeks 3 Days 1 Hours 4 Minutes 50 Seconds |
| Leeds United | 33 Years 0 Weeks 5 Days 23 Hours 55 Minutes 24 Seconds |
| Sheffield Wednesday | 28 Years 41 Weeks 5 Days 4 Hours 39 Minutes 0 Seconds |
| Brighton and Hove Albion | 27 Years 27 Weeks 0 Days 6 Hours 8 Minutes 48 Seconds |
| Burnley | 25 Years 16 Weeks 6 Days 20 Hours 14 Minutes 12 Seconds |
| Ipswich Town | 22 Years 32 Weeks 3 Days 5 Hours 54 Minutes 42 Seconds |
| Derby County | 21 Years 39 Weeks 2 Days 20 Hours 37 Minutes 30 Seconds |
| Preston North End | 19 Years 48 Weeks 0 Days 0 Hours 24 Minutes 12 Seconds |
| Hull City | 19 Years 28 Weeks 5 Days 13 Hours 5 Minutes 20 Seconds |
| Bristol City | 18 Years 41 Weeks 4 Days 6 Hours 38 Minutes 30 Seconds |
| Birmingham City | 18 Years 35 Weeks 3 Days 8 Hours 19 Minutes 36 Seconds |
| Wolverhampton Wanderers | 16 Years 10 Weeks 1 Days 10 Hours 36 Minutes 0 Seconds |
| Queens Park Rangers | 15 Years 40 Weeks 1 Days 7 Hours 38 Minutes 32 Seconds |
| Nottingham Forest | 14 Years 44 Weeks 5 Days 9 Hours 0 Minutes 18 Seconds |
| Blackburn Rovers | 14 Years 18 Weeks 0 Days 19 Hours 22 Minutes 56 Seconds |
| Brentford | 13 Years 51 Weeks 4 Days 14 Hours 3 Minutes 36 Seconds |
| Huddersfield Town | 13 Years 46 Weeks 5 Days 20 Hours 10 Minutes 24 Seconds |
| Reading | 13 Years 40 Weeks 0 Days 14 Hours 34 Minutes 40 Seconds |
| Fulham | 13 Years 16 Weeks 5 Days 5 Hours 13 Minutes 44 Seconds |
| Cardiff City | 12 Years 32 Weeks 0 Days 11 Hours 26 Minutes 32 Seconds |
| Rotherham United | 11 Years 17 Weeks 3 Days 7 Hours 47 Minutes 6 Seconds |
| Bolton Wanderers | 11 Years 8 Weeks 1 Days 16 Hours 13 Minutes 36 Seconds |
| Charlton Athletic | 9 Years 28 Weeks 3 Days 23 Hours 52 Minutes 10 Seconds |
| MK Dons | 7 Years 17 Weeks 2 Days 23 Hours 18 Minutes 24 Seconds |
Hey very nice site!! Man .. Beautiful .. Wonderful .. I’ll bookmark your site and take the feeds also? I am happy to seek out so many helpful info here in the publish, we need develop more strategies on this regard, thank you for sharing. . . . . .|
Appreciate the recommendation. Will try it out.|