Norwich City's average attendance at Carrow Road now compared to 10 years ago | OneFootball

How does Norwich City's attendance compare to 10 years ago?

Key Takeaways

Ten years ago, Norwich City was still a Championship club. Since then, they have flirted with becoming an established top-flight team but have always suffered relegation back to the second tier.

In 2014, the Canaries had just come off the back of three successive seasons in the Premier League. Attendance figures for the Norfolk club were at an all-time high, selling out 53 of the 57 matches at their Carrow Road home throughout this stint in the top flight.

Since then, sell-out crowds have been few and far between for the Yellows. Even upon their return to the top flight just a year later, Norwich managed just five sold-out matches out of a possible 19. As they aim to return to the pinnacle of English football, how do today's attendance stats compare to those ten years ago?

A steady attendance decline over recent years for Norwich

As mentioned, Norwich sold out Carrow Road consistently between 2011 and 2014, with three successive seasons in the Premier League bringing large numbers of supporters. Sadly, a full-capacity crowd has become a bit of a commodity on the yellow side of East Anglia.

Of course, a higher level of football is bound to attract more supporters, as proven by the numbers. However, the last two times City graced the Premiership, in 2019-20 and 2021-22, their attendance figures were a far cry from what they achieved in the Championship.

However, figures for these years must be taken with a pinch of salt, as the COVID-19 pandemic swiped across the nation. Even when the gates reopened for spectators, many people didn't want to risk being in overcrowded areas, to protect their families.

In 2021-22, despite all running as normal, Norwich saw a decrease in their average attendance by roughly 3500 spectators from their last non-COVID-affected season, even though they were in a division higher. Fortunately, the club has begun to see this average increase in recent years.

Norwich's 2024-25 attendance so far

*2020-21 and 2019-20 were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of October 29th 2024, the former Premier League side have played six matches on home turf. Transfermarkt reports that 158,285 total spectators have walked through the turnstiles at Carrow Road during this time.

Based on these numbers, the East Anglian outfit averaged an attendance of 26,381 so far this season. Whilst just six of 23 home matches have been played, this is a drastic increase on last season's figure, which was below 25,000.

With the club's stadium having a capacity of 27,359, the Canaries on average have filled out 96.43% of their ground in the Championship in their opening six matches.

If you look at some of the other figures in the second tier, Norwich have the seventh-highest average attendance in the division. Giant clubs like Sunderland and Leeds United unsurprisingly occupy the top spots, but City sit comfortably in seventh, over a thousand clear of the team below them, Middlesbrough.

With former Premier League clubs such as West Brom, Burnley, Cardiff City, and Middlesbrough below them, the Yellows certainly have top-flight-worthy crowds.

How this compares to 10 years ago

Still in the same league that they found themselves in this time ten years ago, Norwich are actually averaging more spectators per matchday than they did in the 2014-15 season. This is a remarkable feat, as the Canaries went on to win promotion back to the Premier League that season.

Selling out just one fixture out of a possible 23, it was a fairly big decline from the previous three seasons, where Carrow Road had only not reached full capacity four times. However, this can be chalked up to relegation, as lower-quality opponents, coupled with a smaller quantity of travelling fans would've contributed massively to this decrease.

Ten years ago, over 600,000 supporters visited the home of the Yellows, which is a feat that they've only managed to replicate twice since then. Last season's number of 573,156 can be considered a bit of a disappointment, as the year before, they smashed their record with 609,000 total spectators.

If City keep up their average of around 26,300 fans at Carrow Road every matchday, they could be set to see over 606,000 supporters come through the gates this season, which would be their second-highest figure ever.