NTT20's League One Preview: Fan Sentiment
The League One season begins tomorrow. Here's how fans of third-tier clubs are feeling about the campaign ahead.
Welcome to the League One Preview. We’re publishing a club-by-club Cheat Sheet back-to-back with this piece, but this one is all about the fans and the vibes.
A few weeks ago, we asked supporters to share their views on the season ahead. Hundreds and hundreds did exactly that, and now we’re unpacking their thoughts. Who has the most confident fanbase? Which League One club is full of pessimists? And, following the League Two version of this article, will anyone in the EFL predict relegation for their club? Let’s find out.
League One Preview: Fan Sentiment
Some League One fans were 10/10 confident about their club being promoted — 1.46% of them to be exact. But once you spread them out and average them across the 24 teams, then no fanbase was higher than 7.4/10.
Seven is something to hold in your mind. League One's most confident supporters were Luton (7.4/10), Stockport (7.2/10) and Huddersfield (7.1/10) — first, second and fourth favourites per the bookmakers. That is no shock.
In fact, the only shocking thing is the uncanny accuracy of the league portrait supporters paint. Just over 70% of fans are middling to low on their chances. And 70% of 24 = 17. Or more commonly, the mid-table, bottom half and bottom of League One. Now, just under 30% of League One supporters are positive about their chances, and 30% of 24 is 7 – the top seven. All level-headed stuff, but what else is in the box?
(Brad Pitt voice) WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
One of the defining sentiments shared within our survey is that no fans – not in League One nor League Two anyway – are convinced their side will be relegated. The Kooks would call it naive. We would never.
At the start of the season, there is no impossible job. Man alive, even in mid-April, the League One ‘Great Escape’ doesn’t look that great. On 15/04/2023, the gap between 20th and 21st was 0 points, a year later it was 3 points, and last season it was 0 points. It tallies that nobody wants to think about bells tolling or fat ladies singing before August.
A campaign’s journey always begins with expectations. Luton are wearing the ‘favourites’ tag like their favourite togs: with confidence. But will they look box-fresh across 46 games? A quick jaunt up the M1 to Northampton and it’s a very different story. Proceed back southwards, past Toddington Service, through some unmoving traffic, and newly-promoted AFC Wimbledon are keeping their expectations low.
It ain’t all low though…
Yin, Yang, thank you mam. League One fans are split right down the middle. Although it’s important to note that it’s mixed across the clubs. Those who think low really think low. And those who think high really, really think high.
Fans of the bottom-half teams from 2024/25 do not sense a fall. This makes some sense because, when you’re down there in one season, there are more places above you to climb into. But trajectories don’t work like that. The footballing gravity sucked three bottom-half teams from 23/24 into the relegation zone last term (Shrewsbury, Bristol Rovers and Cambridge United).
In the top half, confidence of a higher finish is also relatively high. Whilst Wycombe and Leyton Orient fans don’t seem to think that play-off lightning will strike twice, they are kept company by a lot of mid-ish table teams who tend to think they’ll feel a bolt. A Bolton, for example.
Sentiment is sentiment, though. And whilst one club’s fans think it can’t get much better, another’s will think it can’t get worse. They can’t both be right.
Is there something in the water? In League One this season, there are more teams from outside the South East. It’s commonly known that the further away you get from the M25, the kinder the H20 is on the dishwasher, the washing machine… and the manager?
We don’t know exactly why L1 fans have a preternatural trust in their gaffers, but they’re certainly out of step with the evidence. Last season, 15 managers left their posts from 13 different League One clubs (Crawley and Shrewsbury were at the double). Yup, half the managers left.
But not a single club’s fans voted as a majority “No” to the question. The closest was Reading, with 44%, and then Wycombe with 40%. Everyone else was 20% or less. There is definitely something in the water.
Represented above is each club’s final position as predicted by their own fans. A running theme in League One and League Two (but not so in the Championship, which you’ll see next week) is that no group of fans are tempted to lock themselves away in the dark and middle of the basement.
In fact, half of League One clubs put themselves in the top eight, which at the very least would mean a play-off battle. Whilst the other half has placed itself between 11th and 19th. The funny thing is that, to varying degrees, you find greater optimism about league predictions than you do about promotion chances.
A stonking example of that is Wigan. Their supporters, despite rating their chances of promotion at a cumulative 5.3/10 – i.e. tepid confidence – predict a 6.3 finish. There’ll be no 0.3s in the points tally come the end of the season, but there has to be a winner. Who do fans reckon it is? …
In the League Two preview, more than 50% of fans picked the same winner. It’s not so unanimous in the third tier, albeit Luton are the clear winners of the poll. Two in ten picked Huddersfield, and one in ten picked either Stockport or Plymouth Argyle.
Given Bolton fans predicted themselves 3rd — only beaten by Luton’s score of 1.7 — you may wonder whether they got a vote? Spoiler: they did, swallowing up 2.2% of the popular vote. Oh, and who were the big Others? Leyton Orient, Wycombe, Blackpool and Cardiff.
That’s what the fans think. But, with the season ready to reveal itself, we’d all do well to remember: the game isn’t played on pixels.
Huge thanks to everyone who filled in the survey. Your input and knowledge shaped all of our 25/26 preview content. And big love to the NTT20 Squad for your constant support.