Are Scunthorpe United favourites for promotion next season after narrowly missing out in 2023/2024?

Scunthorpe United had an exciting but ultimately disappointing season in 2023-2024. In the previous season, they suffered a second successive relegation, putting them in the National League North. After having been in League 2 two seasons before, This hasn’t been helped by the club’s financial troubles, which started in 2022 and ultimately resulted in some difficult decisions having to be made, such as closing the club’s academy. 

However, last year, the club came under new ownership fromMichelle Harness. She has a history with the club, having been their commercial manager for over 15 years between 2000 and 2015. And she has pledged to revitalise the club and, over the coming years, help restore them to their former glory. The club itself is one of the oldest in the country, being over 125 years old and initially founded in 1899.

Disappointment in the play-offs 

The ideal result last season would have been automatic promotion, which was taken by Tamworth, who finished a total of 8 points ahead of the club. This left them in a six-way battle for the play-off promotion that was ultimately claimed by Boston United, who joined Tamworth in the league above next season. 

But now that they have stopped their descent and have narrowly missed out on promotion, will they be able to retain and keep the optimism to take them into the next season and make sure they secure promotion this time? There are plenty of places, such as 32red sport betting, that offer you the chance to speculate and bet on whether this will be the case.

What do the bookies think?

A lot of the top bookmakers do indeed have Scunthorpe as a favourite to get promoted this coming season. After all, they were the second-best team by points in the league at the end of the season itself, a total of 3 points ahead of third place and a total of 13 points ahead of Boston United, who ultimately got promoted in the play-offs. There have already been somechanges behind the scenes, and at the start of May, it was announced that first-team manager Jimmy Dean and assistant manager Chris Plummer would be leaving the club. 

The fans have got the passion back.

Since Harness has taken over, fans have started to rally around the new owner and her pursuit to relieve the club of its financial burdens. The average attendance has quickly risen to just over 4,000 for each of the home matches, which is a lot higher than the majority of the teams in the leagues above them. Fans have been queueing up at the ticket office and there seems to be a sense of hope in the air again. And Scunthorpe will need a boost from the fans to help them hit the ground running in the upcoming season so that they can secure automatic promotion and avoid missing out and having to battle off in the play-offs again. 

In Summary

As the new season kicks off in August, it’s going to be exciting to see how strong of a start the club has. In the meantime, there is plenty of time for transfers and also for the players to bond with the new manager, Andy Butler, as they look to restructure and start the next season as strong as possible. With there being so much support for the new owner, we can expect the new board that she has formed at the club to be fully behind her and any decisions that she makes.