Dartford chairman Steve Irving takes inspiration from Chatham Town as he weighs up options for increasing attendances at Princes Park next season

Chairman Steve Irving has vowed Dartford will be working hard to increase attendances at Princes Park.

Some sections of supporters feel their club are being overtaken in that regard by other non-league teams who are more connected to their fanbase, and their views are being taken seriously.

“I think we’ve got to take note of some of the comments supporters have made,” stated Mr Irving. “Constructive comments are always good.

“There have been some very good ones recently and we’re shortly going to announce admission prices, season-ticket prices and changes to one or two things that are going to go on around the ground to try and encourage people to come back through the door.

“The attendances have dropped but they still sit over the 1,000-mark, which we’ve always had. People like to throw at us that the crowds have been decimated, but they haven’t.

“There have been one or two poor crowds but the average tells what it was, and that was over 1,000.

“We’ve got to do more, we’ve got to do better and we’ve got to look at some of the clubs around us who have doubled and trebled their attendances, the likes of Chatham and Hastings and others who almost overnight have started bringing 1,500 or 2,000 people in.

“So, we need to learn from them which we will be doing in the coming weeks.”

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Dartford reduced admission prices for the final four home league games of the season.

They also made it free admission for juniors, in contrast to the previous membership scheme which was introduced after a small minority of youngsters caused problems at matches.

On dropping the prices, Mr Irving noted: “It certainly worked as the first two games we had 1,300-plus.

“It’s a bit of a loss leader