Nearly one million overseas visitors to the UK watched a professional football match during their stay last year, according to new figures.

Big promotions by the national tourist agency VisitBritain involving the English Premier League helped keep visitor numbers up during the depths of winter. The greatest proportion of inbound tourists going to see a top team play visited during January to March, even if actual numbers were higher later in the year.

Manchester United and Liverpool encouraged visitors out of London, with Old Trafford and Anfield accounting for nearly 20% of the total.

Figures based on responses to questions in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) international passenger survey for 2011 suggest that 1.3 million visitors (about 4% of all foreign visitors) went to a live sports event, and 900,000 of those watched football.

The sports fans spent an average of £850 on their UK stays, far more than the overall average of £570, largely because they stayed longer. Players such as the Brazilian midfielder Sandro at Tottenham Hotspur, the American goalkeeper Tim Howard at Everton and Fulham's Norwegian defender, Brede Hangeland, have all helped promote UK tourism.

The largest number of football visitors were from the Irish Republic, totalling 174,000, or 7% of all visitors from across the Irish Sea. The 80,000 Norwegians who went to a match made up an estimated 12% of all trips to the UK from their country. Next came 61,000 US fans, 54,000 from Spain and 48,000 from Germany. Mexico, Sweden and Iceland also accounted for healthy totals.

There were high numbers of spectators for golf from the US, for rugby from Ireland and for cricket from Australia. The next largest group of cricket-watchers came over from France, but many were probably Brits living abroad.

This month the ONS suggested the Olympics and Paralympics may have caused a 5% dip in tourist numbers compared with August 2011, but those who did visit this summer spent 9% more than foreign visitors the previous year.