A BUMPER crowd of over 13,000 watched Swindon Town beat Exeter City last Saturday – and manager Richie Wellens says the entire day highlights how far the club has come both on and off the pitch.

A 2-1 success not only cemented Town’s position at the top of League Two, but 11,000 home fans saw the highest attendance at the County Ground in over six years – 14,924 watched Chelsea, featuring a young Kevin De Bruyne, beat Swindon 2-0 in September 2013.

Town may not see such a high attendance again this season due to the 2,000 fans that last weekend’s visitors brought.

But a vast improvement in both team performances and feeling around the club from Wellens’ County Ground debut in November 2018 is likely to see numbers through the gate continue to rise.

And the 39-year-old believes everyone at Swindon deserves great credit for the strides Town have made in just over a year.

Wellens said: “It’ll be difficult (to match Saturday’s attendance) – I’m not sure we’ll see a team bring as many as Exeter did either.

“But we had 11,000 home fans, so why can’t we achieve that again?

“The crowd was brilliant, and it shows the potential.

“Look back at my first game, we had 6,500 here and were being beat 4-0 by Carlisle.

“I thought to myself ‘what have I let myself in for’. On Saturday, it was chalk and cheese.

“And every credit to everyone at the club because we’re trying to think forward and be progressive.

“The signings in January have helped that. The numbers were great, but so was the noise.

“It wasn’t a great game of football, but you have to consider the conditions. The noise at the end was fantastic.”

As well as the eight signings that Wellens made in January, three players were released early on in the month while several youngsters were sent out on loan at various points.

No senior players were traded late on in the window however – Kaiyne Woolery was rumoured to be of interest to both Blackpool and Bradford City, but no move materialised.

Wellens did not comment on specific players, but the Town boss said a couple of his squad may have left the County Ground had better offers been received.

He said: “There were a couple of things that didn’t happen at the end of the window.

“I don’t want to lose anyone, but I am aware that I have to try and balance the books.

“I would imagine the extra four or five thousand on the gate last Saturday would have helped with that.

“I was half-hoping that no phone calls would come because I wanted players to stay.

“They did come, it was just the offers weren’t acceptable.”