The 10 most silent EFL League Two fanbases exposed and ranked by AI | OneFootball

Football League World have asked AI to rank the ten quietest fanbases in League Two, and here's what it told us.

Football League World have asked AI to rank the ten quietest fanbases in this season's League Two, and here's what it told us.

Generating a bit of an atmosphere for home matches can be invaluable for all football clubs, but this gets increasingly difficult the lower down the leagues you go.

Making a bit of noise is very different if you've got 30,000 people in attendance to if you've got 3,000 turning up every other Saturday.

So FLW have asked AI to identify the ten quietest fanbases in League Two, and it supplied a modicum of its reasoning behind its rankings. Most importantly, it says that "Attendance = Atmosphere Proxy." In other words, the bigger the crowd, the easier it is to generate an atmosphere.

But it didn't stop there. It also added that lower away followings will impact upon attendances, which may affect some clubs in more isolated geographical areas, and it also mentioned that a club's historical size also plays a critical role, saying that, "Historic fanbase size often impacts how loud and engaged a stadium feels; smaller clubs often have passionate but smaller groups of supporters."

It is notable that all ten of the entrants in this list have experienced non-league football in the 21st century, with the majority having been non-league clubs for more than half their histories. But having said that, there were a couple of surprises in this list, so let's take a look at who AI thinks are the quietest ten fanbases in League Two.

Harrogate Town are in their sixth season in the EFL following promotion from the National League in 2020, but have failed to make much of an impression on League Two, having failed so far to finish above 13th in the table. Average crowds for 2025-26 have been just over the 3,000 mark, which represent a tiny improvement on 2024-25. But attracting bigger crowds will remain a challenge for a club representing a town of just 75,000 people.

A common theme across this entire top ten is non-league clubs who've been promoted into the EFL, and the attendances at Salford City are proof that even the publicity generated by the involvement of the Class of '92 at The Peninsula Stadium hasn't been enough to push the Ammies' attendances through the roof.

Salford's average home attendances sit at just over 3,000, but it is worth remembering how far all of these clubs have come. Ten years ago, their average home crowd was 703, meaning that they've more than quadrupled their home crowds in the last decade, even if they remain modest by League Two standards.

8 ? ? Bromley

Bromley's promotion to the EFL in 2024 was the culmination of a twenty-year quiet revolution at Hayes Lane. In 2004, the club were playing in the Isthmian League Division One South, but four promotions in those two decades have taken them all the way into League Two.

Their first season as a League club ended in a creditable 11th-placed finish and this season has seen them improve considerably on the pitch, with the team pushing for a play-off - and not inconceivably an automatic - promotion place.

Attendances, however, have not increased in line with this. So far this season, their average has been 3,003, compared to 3,111 last season. Being on the outskirts of London makes hugely growing attendances a challenge because local fans may already have established loyalties with other, bigger clubs.

7 ? ? Barrow

Barrow were promoted to the EFL at the same time as Harrogate in 2020, marking a return to the League for the first time since getting voted out in favour of Hereford United in 1972, and have faced similar challenges in boosting their crowds since then.

They have a better record since joining League Two, having managed top-half finishes in 2023 and 2024, but the club's relatively isolated geographical location again makes growing the club's attendances tricky. They're another of the clutch of clubs whose average attendances this season have hovered just above the 3,000 mark.

National League champions Barnet are heading in the right direction, with an average home attendance this season of 2,956 comparing favourably with the 2,315 they could manage during their title-winning season.

But Barnet's biggest problem is that they don't play in Barnet. The Hive is in Canons Park, on the other side of Edgware, and that's six miles from High Barnet, where the club were formerly located. Small wonder the Bees have plans to move back to Underhill and the site of the stadium that they called home until 2013.

Lancashire is a football hotbed, but this doesn't benefit all the county's clubs. Accrington is roughly equidistant between Burnley and Blackburn, and with neither of those two towns being particularly massive either, it's not a surprise that the club who were promoted into the EFL in 2006 should still struggle for attendances. The nearby giants of Manchester and Liverpool don't help in this respect, either. AI recognises this by mentioning that Stanley also had "Historically low attendances even when in higher tiers,"

Stanley are bottom of the 92 in terms of their average home attendances in 2025-26, with just 2,330 at the Wham Stadium so far this season, but despite this, the team are comfortably clear of the relegation places as the halfway point of the League Two season draws close.

Crawley Town have been an EFL club for a decade and a half now, but despite two spells in League One the club have continued to struggle for attendances. Just over 3,500 have been turning out at Broadfield Stadium this season, and most worrying for Crawley is that this number represents a 20% drop on the 4,400 they averaged as they were relegated from League One at the end of last season.

3 ? ? Cheltenham Town

Cheltenham Town were first promoted into the Football League in 1999, and had a season back in the non-league game following relegation in 2015, although they were promoted straight back the following season as National League champions.

But their attendances are the highest of the "traditional" non-league clubs now playing in League Two, with an average of 3,918 having turned out at Whaddon Road so far this season, although this represents a 5% drop on the 4,118 who turned out to watch them on average last season.

Cheltenham do benefit from a degree of geographical isolation. There are no other EFL or Premier League clubs nearby, and their traditional local rivals Gloucester City remain a non-league club.

2 ? ? Cambridge United

It's not until the top two of this list that things start to get a little unexpected. Cambridge United were only relegated from League One at the end of the 2024-25 season, and average home attendances at The Abbey Stadium are by far the highest on this list, averaging at over 6,100.

Furthermore, these only represent a drop of a few hundred on the 6,600 that they averaged in League One, while the team is performing reasonably well in the league, being well in touch with a potential play-off place as the season reaches its half-way point. .

AI's explanation for this is, "Following relegation, Cambridge have a solid but not particularly large fanbase, frequently generating quieter home atmospheres compared with the league’s bigger support bases."

Already adrift at the foot of the EFL, Newport County are having a bad season. But home crowds are averaging almost 4,300 and they're practically identical to last season, so it's somewhat questionable why AI has chosen to put them at the top of this list.

Rodney Parade is open at both ends with big gaps behind each goal, which might not help with generating much of an atmosphere, but it was perhaps an eyebrow-raising moment to see them occupy the top position on this list.