Huge crowd is a reward for hard work at Lewes FC

The Rooks recorded their biggest ever home attendance in at least 70 years as 2,347 supporters turned up to the Dripping Pan to see them take on Isthmian Premier leaders Worthing.

More people were at Lewes than Sussex’s top-ranked game of the day, Crawley Town’s League Two fixture against Scunthorpe United, despite three divisions separating the clubs.

Worthing won 2-1 thanks to goals from Callum Kealey and Jesse Starkey, but Lewes took heart from the gate.

Boss airs pitch concerns.

Chairman Stuart Fuller said: “We’ve built a really good environment for fans; we’ve got great football being played and the locals appreciate what we’re trying to do as a club both on and off the pitch.

“In some ways we were a little bit disappointed because that was a restricted capacity – we could only have that number as that’s what the council said.

“We could have sold 400 to 500 more quite easily. At 12 o’clock we had 115 tickets left and there were people queuing. There was a queue of about 70 people in the car park for those tickets.”

Russell unworried by loss of top five spot.

Fuller said matchdays when Brighton were not in home action boosted their backing.

He added: “When Brighton are at home we tend to lose about 15 per cent of our average [attendance]. It massively helped playing Worthing – they brought at least 700.

“I think if we’re going into the final two weeks of the season and we’re still in with a really good shout of the play-offs we’ll get crowds of 1,500 plus.”