How fans are falling in love with football again — SkimNews
Get the Sports newsletter
Daily sports — scores, transfers, the storylines from the leagues you actually follow. Free.
- Marc White, 52, founder, owner and manager of Dorking Wanderers, is the longest-serving manager in the top six tiers of English football, with the club promoted 12 times in 26 years and only relegated once (National League, 2024).
- Dorking Wanderers' "Dorking Uncovered" YouTube documentary on Rich Phippen's "Bunch of Amateurs" channel generated half a billion views in 2025, and the club now averages around 1,600 at Meadowbank in Surrey — two promotions from the Football League.
- Average attendances in the National League South reached 1,221 in 2024-25, a 134% rise on the average a decade earlier, as clubs bypass shrinking local newspaper coverage by self-publishing on their own platforms.
- Aaron Hunt gained thousands of Twitch followers streaming Football Manager, was invited to chair Daisy Hill FC, and the club's stadium is now sponsored by YouTuber AngryGinge as GingePower Stadium after his visit clip drew over a million views.
- KSI bought a stake in Dagenham and Redbridge this year, joining the celebrity-ownership wave White credits to the Wrexham effect from Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
- White received a six-match touchline ban last year for a podcast comment about women, and says he monitors social media edits of himself to avoid further punishment, joking he could become "the first football manager to get a lifetime ban."
Why it matters: Local newspaper coverage of non-league has been hollowed out, and Premier League matchday and TV costs keep climbing — so the clubs now reaching fans are the ones building their own YouTube and TikTok channels, with Dorking's 134% attendance rise over a decade and half-billion documentary views showing that the audience for football below the Football League is bigger and more digitally native than the traditional pyramid has ever counted.
Ask SkimNews
