Burgess Hill announce 42% rise in attendances

The League leaders have averaged gates of 348 this season in the first 14 league games at the Green Elephants Stadium compared to 245 after the same amount of games in the 2013/2014 season.

The Club’s General Manager, John Rattle, said “Over the past three seasons we have seen a steady increase in attendances both on Saturday’s and at our midweek fixtures. We have worked hard behind the scenes in making sure that our supporters and visitors to the Club enjoy the facilities on a match day. We recently enjoyed a crowd of over a 1000 people in the FA Trophy and we showed that day we have the infrastructure within the club to manage crowds of that size. We are ambitious, and we want to make the town proud of its Football Club. A town the size of Burgess Hill should be getting average home gates in the region of 400-500.”

Rattle continued “We have nine home league games remaining this season, and they could be the most important games if the team continues producing performances as they have done so far.”

Manager Ian Chapman added “The support the team is getting this season has been really positive. We are now getting around 350 people on average at our home games and that is fantastic and I assure you it really helps the players knowing that we have that sort of support, even away from home we regularly make up a large number of the crowd.”

Saturday saw the Hillians defeat Sittingbourne 1-0 thanks to Dan Perry’s first half strike in front of a crowd of 464 and Chapman said “It was another hard working, rather than quality, display. Every side we play now are obviously really up for it, and we are aware there are no easy games. I felt we defended as a team really well and probably just shaded the match on chances. Toby Pointing came on to replace Will Miles after five minutes and was probably our man of the match.”

Last night the Hillians were due to play Worthing in the quarter final of the Sussex Senior Cup and this Saturday travel to Tooting & Mitcham United in the league. Saturday should see us have Darren Budd back after his suspension and we are also hoping Miles and Scott Kirkwood will also be available,” said Chapman.

“There are still have 19 league games to play and we know we are in a good position, but we must not get complacent and keep working hard right through the remaining fixtures. With that in mind we are happy with our squad, but if somebody comes along who I think will strengthen it, we will do that”.