How many points are needed to win the National League?
One of the biggest stories so far of the 2022/23 English football season has been the titanic battle at the top of the National League. Two teams are vying for the title and the sole automatic promotion place into the holy grail of the EFL. Both Wrexham and Notts County are two grand old clubs who suffered play-off heartbreak last season, the former having done so numerous times throughout their long stretch in the fifth tier of English football. But both are enjoying wonderful seasons with each having already hit the 90 point mark.
Wrexham have painful memories of accruing an abnormally high points total across a season but it not being enough to garner promotion, having accumulated 98 points in the 2011/12 campaign, only to be pipped to the title by Fleetwood Town with a certain Jamie Vardy among their side. The Red Dragons then proceeded to be knocked out of the play-offs by Luton Town.
Since the division went to a 46-game season in 2006/07, we've looked at the average points required to win the National League:
The points tally for the 2019/20 season has not been taken into account in either average as a full season was not played
As it stands, an average points total of 95.9 has been enough to secure the National League title and automatic promotion from the 2006/07 season up to now, although the more relevant number to consider is the 96.8 average for the seasons where clubs played 46 times (for a number of reasons, this was not the case in 2009/10, 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22). This puts into perspective the feat that both Wrexham and Notts County are on the way to achieving in terms of points so far. This is an abnormal season and right now it's looking very likely that for the first time, a club will finish on 100 points or more but fail to finish top of the table. As it stands, the National League champions have finished on over 100 points five times since 2006/07, four of those coming post 2010. The record points total for a National League winning club is the 105 recorded by Crawley Town in their triumphant 2010/11 campaign. It would be no surprise if that record wasn't surpassed by either Wrexham or Notts County, if not both!
