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Darlington FC


Neil

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From a Darlo fan:

 

So that looks like that. The bell is tolling for Darlington Football Club and it appears as though the final whistle on Saturday called time not only on a highly-emotional afternoon, but on our very existence.

 

As the whistle blew there was a moment of sudden reality, a realisation that the club we all hold so close to our hearts was more than likely no more, resigned to be a statistic, to be another ex-football club, to simply be history.

 

But for Darlington fans, if Saturday proved one thing, it's that this doesn't have to be the case. As I looked around I saw what supporting a football club should mean.

 

There I saw the usual faces, pale, dejected and teary-eyed. However, if there was a risk of tears from myself it was soon allayed, for when you looked beyond this desperation, you saw what it meant to support our club.

 

There were arms round shoulders, reassuring words and a sense of togetherness that has been absent for too long. We had found our identity again.

 

The weight had been lifted, we were no longer a safe cracker's ego trip or a cowboy's plaything.

 

For one last time we were simply Darlington Football Club, standing amongst friends and watching the team do us proud. That is what football should be about for every fan of every club.

 

It was then that it became clear that the club can't die because Darlington FC is more than just a name, it's a community.

 

Even if starting all over again remains the only way to maintain this, maintain it we must. And, if we can draw upon a level of togetherness similar to that we all showed as the lady was whistling, we can only succeed.

 

The unity at Barrow showed that if the club ceases to be, then 128 years of history will not be lost. It will be carried forward in the hearts and minds of the people that make the club what it is.

 

The biggest myth surrounding our club at present is that it's dying because of finances, stadiums and other factors too numerous to mention.

 

On a literal level this may be the case, but in terms of what Darlington FC represents, the truth is the club died a good while ago.

 

In recent years this club has treated good people badly. From David Hodgson to Steve Foster, to countless other players and people behind the scenes that have worked so hard drive the club forward, too many have been mistreated by this club and its owners in the past decade.

 

What they all failed to realise is they might have owned the club, but the club will never be theirs. It's ours.

 

What we now is an opportunity to rebuild our club, as a phoenix from the ashes baptised by the tears of real football fans.

 

So if Saturday was to be our last call, our heads should not be hung in sorrow, but held high, for it is fans of clubs like Darlington that make football what it is.

 

We will be back some day, and this time we will no longer be a rich man's plaything.

 

The fans might not be millionaires but it is us that are all the richer for belonging to something very special for the past 128 years.

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It's never been the players, or lack of players, that's screwed them over.  They've got players comfortably capable of playing in League One/Two. 

 

That massive, useless, pointless stadium is what has screwed them.  It's miles away from the town centre with crap parking and it's stupidly expensive for the level they're at.  If you're a casual football fan, you're not likely to go there too often. 

 

The last 2 or 3 owners have all said the same thing, if the council would lift the covenants on the land that the ground is on so developers could build shops, a cinema, etc. then they could probably make it a success.  But they knew that wasn't going to be allowed when it was being built but it seems they built it anyway with the expectation that once the stadium was there the council would recant and allow the rest of the development - like building an extension to a house without planning permission and hoping that once it was done they'd be allowed retroactive planning permission, sometimes it works, sometimes the council turn up to demolish it. 

 

Move the club back into the town centre (Feethams is still there, lying derelict), drop the ticket price and get fans back in the ground.  If they do that they'll stand a chance of survival.  Even if they find investment to see out this season they'll be back in the same position inside a couple of years, without investment they'll be starting next season as a new club right at the lowest tier of English football (and they'll probably be better of for it).

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I'd imagine Feethams would need massive work to get it up to standard - Darlington aren't exactly flush at the moment! Perhaps it might be an opportunity for a new club, but they will need the council on board for that too.

 

Just seen a recent picture of Feethams and it's not even derelict now. Part of one stand remains, but the rest has been raized to the ground.

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went into that stadium for a Darlo presser about 2 1/2 years ago now as part of a placement.

 

Its utterly insane.  Everything in the main reception is plated in imitation gold and the floor is marble.  Theres also a lift in there, going up one floor, directly to an apartment with a pitch view which Reynolds built for himself to live in.

 

Its totally over the top and like some sort of charva palace.  So tacky.

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The writing was on the wall for that club when that ignorant tool Reynolds built an 'arena' 10 times too big.

 

The stadium payments are actually reasonable for a club in their position.  Other clubs in their league are paying double.

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The writing was on the wall for that club when that ignorant tool Reynolds built an 'arena' 10 times too big.

had the 'pleasure' of sitting next to him and his cronies a year or so back in the simla, he was OK but his hangers on are pathetic scum (especially the horrid little tart). can only think he surrounds himself with those that wont say 'no' so no-one had the bottle to say the ground was not really going to work.
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Iirc didn't it all begin to unravel because the local council refuse to let the stadium be used for concerts and other sporting events etc? ... Due to a safety certificate issue perhaps and also a personal/political grudge against G?... So the extra income the club had budgeted on was blocked... And the free fall began...

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The writing was on the wall for that club when that ignorant tool Reynolds built an 'arena' 10 times too big.

had the 'pleasure' of sitting next to him and his cronies a year or so back in the simla, he was OK but his hangers on are pathetic scum (especially the horrid little tart). can only think he surrounds himself with those that wont say 'no' so no-one had the bottle to say the ground was not really going to work.

 

What's the Simla?

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