GoalSoon · 31 July 2026
A rating built from 26 seasons of results says the 2024/25 title went to the third-best team in the division — and that eleven points of luck separated the top three.
Brackley Town won National League North in 2024/25 with 92 points. Scunthorpe United finished on 90, Kidderminster Harriers on 89. Three points covered the three of them across a 46-game season, and on that evidence you would call it a close title race decided by fine margins.
It was not close. It was the opposite of close — the margins simply fell one way.
| Club | W-D-L | GF | GA | Points | Deserved | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brackley Town | 29-5-12 | 75 | 42 | 92 | 84.2 | +7.8 |
| Scunthorpe United | 26-12-8 | 76 | 30 | 90 | 93.8 | −3.8 |
| Kidderminster Harriers | 27-8-11 | 86 | 37 | 89 | 93.7 | −4.7 |
Scunthorpe and Kidderminster deserved more points than any other club in the division. Brackley deserved the fourth-most. The title went to the third-best team in the league, and the gap between what Brackley earned and what the two clubs behind them earned comes to roughly eleven points.
Every club's attack and defence were fitted to that season's 552 matches, and each fixture was then replayed as a probability rather than a scoreline: given how these two sides actually played, how often does the home team win, draw, lose? Sum those across 46 games and you get the points a club would collect if its goals arrived in an ordinary pattern instead of the particular pattern they did.
The difference matters because a 5-0 and a 0-1 are worth the same three points as two 1-0s, and one of those pairs of afternoons is a much better season than the other. Brackley won 29 matches and drew only five — a record built on converting close games. Scunthorpe drew twelve. That is where eleven points of separation hide.
Brackley scored 75 and conceded 42. Scunthorpe scored 76 and conceded 30 — the best defensive record in the division by seven goals. Kidderminster scored 86, the best attack in the division, and conceded 37. On both sides of the ball the champions were third of the three.
Two other things sit underneath the table. Brackley had the easiest schedule in the division by our opponent-strength measure — the average side they faced was weaker than the average side Scunthorpe or Kidderminster faced. And when the three met, Brackley lost at home to both: Scunthorpe won 3-0 there in August, Kidderminster won 1-0 there in March.
Sixth place went to King's Lynn Town on 79 points, against 67.1 deserved — a gap of nearly twelve points, the largest in the division. They scored 52 goals all season, fewer than any other club in the top eleven, and still finished sixth. Chorley knocked them out in the qualifying round, 1-0.
None of that makes King's Lynn's season fraudulent. Winning tight games is a real thing that happened, and the points are on the board. But a season built that way is a poor guide to the next one, which is the whole reason for measuring it.
This is the part that is not a model output. Scunthorpe went up through the play-offs, beating Chorley 4-2 in the semi-final and coming through a 1-1 final against Chester. Kidderminster lost their semi-final 1-2 at home to the same Chester side. Brackley went up as champions.
Both promoted clubs then played the 2025/26 National League season:
| Club | 2024/25 (tier 6) | 2025/26 (tier 5) | Points | Deserved |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scunthorpe United | 2nd, play-off winners | 5th | 82 | 73.9 |
| Brackley Town | Champions | 21st | 42 | 40.6 |
The club our rating had third finished fifth in the division above. The champions finished 21st of 24, and this time there was no luck to appeal to — Brackley's 42 points were within two of what they deserved. They were simply that far off the level.
The full 2024/25 National League North season — every table, all 552 matches with the rating for both sides going in, every player who appeared, and the calibration table so you can check the model rather than take my word for it — is in the free season pack, along with National League South and tiers 2 to 5.