There is a moment, if you have spent any time watching Dorking Uncovered on YouTube, where you realise that non-league football has quietly become must-see television. Marc White, baseball cap pulled low, is gesticulating on a touchline somewhere in the National League South, and whatever he is saying is almost certainly being edited before it reaches your screen. "I know that if they don't edit out the right bits, I'll get banned every week," he admits, with the kind of self-awareness that has made him one of the most watchable figures in the English football pyramid.
White is 52 years old, the longest-serving manager in the top six tiers of English football, and the founder of a club he started with a group of mates because they were fed up paying Premier League prices and simply wanted to play. Dorking Wanderers, formed 26 years ago just outside the M25, have been promoted twelve times since. They suffered their only relegation in the National League in 2024, and they are documenting every step of the climb back through the Bunch of Amateurs YouTube channel, run by Rich Phippen. In 2025 alone, that content has racked up half a billion views.
Filling the gap left by local journalism
The backdrop to all of this is the slow retreat of local newspapers from non-league coverage. Reduced resources have left a void that clubs have had to fill themselves, and the sharper ones have grasped the opportunity with both hands. Goal highlights posted to Instagram, candid interviews on TikTok, long-form documentary content on YouTube — it is all doing the job that the back page of a free weekly paper once did, only with a potentially global audience rather than a hyperlocal one.
White is direct about why that matters. "A lot of people underestimate how little people know about their local football club," he says. "You're now talking about decades of people that have never picked up a newspaper, and that target audience probably watches the Premier League and they have no idea what's going on near their local high street, where probably the beer is cheaper, the travel certainly cheaper, and they know a lot more people there."
The numbers back him up. Average attendances in Dorking's division reached 1,221 during the 2024-25 season — a rise of 134 per cent on the average from a decade earlier. That is not just Dorking's doing, but it is the kind of trajectory that suggests something is genuinely shifting in the grassroots game.
The Wrexham ripple and the KSI effect
It would be impossible to talk about non-league's growing profile without acknowledging the path carved out by Wrexham, whose rise from the National League to the Championship under Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney demonstrated what celebrity investment combined with savvy content creation could achieve. That blueprint is now being studied and replicated.
The latest high-profile arrival is YouTuber KSI, who took a stake in Dagenham and Redbridge this year. White, whose Wanderers have faced Dagenham on the pitch, sees the value immediately — even if he is realistic about the learning curve involved. "There's no glamour," he says. But the exposure KSI brings, with his enormous social media following, ripples outward across the whole division. "He's bringing attention to the product. And that benefits every single club in the league."
Elsewhere, Aaron Hunt, a Football Manager streamer on Twitch, found himself invited to become chairman of a North West Counties Football League club after his content drew thousands to the idea of following a real local side. The club's ground is now called GingePower Stadium, sponsored by fellow YouTuber AngryGinge after he streamed a matchday visit to over a million viewers.
Connecting clubs with communities they had lost
What ties all of this together is something simpler than algorithms or follower counts. Social media is, at its most effective, a reconnection tool — pulling clubs back into conversations with communities that had drifted away toward the Premier League's polished product. White frames it neatly: "The power of social media is taking the clubs to their own target market and also taking the target market to the clubs. It's connecting the two."
With top-flight ticket prices and subscription costs continuing to rise, the audience for an affordable, authentic alternative is clearly there. Non-league football's challenge has always been making itself visible. Increasingly, it is finding ways to do exactly that — one clip, one stream, one documentary episode at a time.
Frequently asked
- What is Dorking Wanderers and how did they get famous?
- Dorking Wanderers are a non-league football club based just outside the M25, founded 26 years ago by Marc White and a group of friends. They gained a large following through a YouTube documentary series called 'Dorking Uncovered', which follows the club behind the scenes and has amassed half a billion views in 2025 alone.
- Why are non-league football attendances going up in England?
- A combination of rising Premier League ticket and subscription costs, and a surge in social media content from clubs, is drawing more fans to non-league grounds. Average attendances in Dorking's division rose by 134% over a decade, reaching 1,221 per game in 2024-25.
- Has KSI bought a football club?
- Yes, YouTuber KSI took a stake in Dagenham and Redbridge in 2025. Fans and clubs in the same division believe his huge social media presence will bring wider attention to non-league football as a whole, not just to Dagenham themselves.