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 at the end of the day, doing what we did cost the club money in terms of lost revenue even with the higher crowds.

“Even at 1,300 it’s not made up for the difference between the admission prices and the free entry for the kids. But it’s something we felt we had to do to improve the atmosphere at the ground.

“This thing about us banning kids, we never did. We just wanted them to behave, go through a membership scheme and come and enjoy the games.

“If it carried on as it was, we were at risk of getting big fines from the FA and the league because of their misbehaviour. It was only a small element as well, which was the thing.

“The membership scheme was only designed to keep an eye on who they were, and if we had to deal with things, we had a mechanism to do so. But we were accused of banning them and we never did ban them.

“The last four games we did what we did and it brought a lot of the kids back in which was great to see, and they behaved which was brilliant.

“I was at Yeovil for the last away game and there were officially 115 Dartford fans there. There was a big crowd of youngsters and they were absolutely brilliant, they sang their hearts out and behaved well and we need them back next season.”

Mr Irving also paid tribute to the club’s women’s team and academy sides, who have enjoyed success on the field this term.

He added: “We’ve got some fantastic sections - the women’s team have been outstanding, they won their Cup Final on Sunday 5-1, they’ve got the Kent Cup Final next Sunday and are second in the league.

“That’s a highlight in a rather dark season. We’ve got to work with the management team there to make sure we give them every opportunity to progress.

“The Academy won the National League Alliance this year, two or three sides in the junior academy have won leagues and cups, reached national finals, so of course the future’s bright.”