Crowd puller
The club is well supported. Our enthusiastic supporters are faithful and have followed the club throughout its journey up the non-league pyramid. However, even this hard-core support is now becoming frustrated with following a club which has no home ground.
The club are aware that many 'old' supporters will return and new supporters will support the club, if it returned to Maidstone, which after all, has a population of 140,000. This view is underpinned by the statistics for the old Maidstone United team, which attracted crowds in excess of 1,500 people regularly in the old Southern League.
Maidstone United Football Club expects attendances to rise dramatically upon its return to Kent's county town.
The population of the borough of Maidstone is estimated at 140,000. The club only needs to attract 0.5% of residents to increase attendances to more than 1,000.
The borough's population does not include Malling, which despite being in a different local authority area, has a great affiliation to Maidstone United through its proximity to the borough boundary.
The stadium's town centre location will help it attract people shopping in the town. Maidstone's main shopping centre attracts 222,000 visitors per week. Averaged equally, although Saturdays will be higher, it comes out as 31,714. The club could promote a 'Sport and Shop Saturday' to encourage families to the new stadium.
Dartford Football Club returned home in 2006 after a similar time away from its town as Maidstone. Its average attendance in 2005/2006 was 291. At the end of the 2006/2007 season, the average was 1,171, an increase of 303%! The 2007/2008 season's average was 1,135, showing that the rise was sustainable. Dartford's population is approximately 86,000.
As well as an existing loyal support and known dormant support, the club also boasts 29 teams. An average of 16 players per team, plus one parent equates to more than 850 people.
Despite the difficulties of not having a home ground, the supporters have shown their commitment to the cause by raising funds for The club to help it develop its new facilities. The supporters have undertaken several fund-raising events including sponsored walks. Evidence from the supporters' group web-site and fanzine, shows how desperate they are for the stadium to be built in Maidstone.