Where Burnley FC rank in the Championship's best attendances this season | OneFootball

Turf Moor has been near capacity at times this season, but that hasn't always been the case

Burnley are riding high near the top of the Championship, and have been for most of the season, so you'd be forgiven for expecting their attendances to be among the biggest in the Championship, but that hasn't been the case.

There is one huge mitigating factor in why that's the case, and that's because the size of Burnley itself is tiny when compared to a city like Leeds or Sheffield for example, but representative numbers suggest the Clarets are one of the better supported clubs in the league.

Success obviously plays a part in that, and the Clarets faithful have been treated to enough of that this season as they sit firmly in the automatic promotion race as the campaign enters its home straight.

Although the brand of football played by Scott Parker has come in for intense criticism by quarters of the Burnley support at times this season, which has put some fans off, the fact remains that the Clarets are one of two clubs in the Championship yet to taste a home defeat this season.

A record like that certainly helps bring fans through the turnstiles, and here, we take a look at how Burnley's attendances this season compare to their Championship rivals.

Burnley's average attendance is middle of the road in the Championship

An average of 19,892 people per game have gone through the Turf Moor turnstiles this season, which is nowhere near the biggest in the league.

In fact, that average attendance is the 14th-highest in the Championship, with their three automatic promotion rivals all in the top three, which highlights how a football club from the town of Burnley are firmly punching above their weight at times.

Sunderland lead the way for average attendance, coming in at 38,546 people per game through their turnstiles, which is almost twice as many as Burnley have been able to attract this season!

Things do look slightly better for the Clarets when looking at what capacity of the ground has been filled this season, with 90.4% of the ground being filled throughout the campaign, which is the ninth-best figure in the league.

That hands Burnley local bragging rights in that case, as their percentage of the ground filled is almost 40% more than Blackburn Rovers, who have only managed to fill just over 50% of Ewood Park this season.

This season has brought Burnley's highest-ever Championship average attendance

This season arguably hasn't been Burnley's most successful in the Championship, with most fans probably arguing that their 2022/23 season under Vincent Kompany was a bigger success than this campaign has been so far.

Despite those claims, Burnley's average attendance of 19,892 so far this season is larger than the 19,776 they averaged in the Kompany promotion season, although the final few months of the season could sawy those numbers one way or another.

This season's numbers eclipse the average attendances from the three other Championship promotion seasons, with the 2013/14 and 2008/09 campaigns both seeing averages in the 13,000's, while the 2015/16 season was in the 16,000's.

For context, those 13,000 numbers would see Burnley have the third-lowest Championship attendance if they were replicated this season, and that would largely be because the two sides who'd be below them wouldn't be able to fit 13,000 in their ground!