Darlington

Things just keep going from bad to worse for our Wembley opponents of yesteryear Darlington. Relegated 4 divisions due to their financial problems, and their latest manager has left to take up a coaching role with Sunderland. Now that's the kind of bodyblow that you could never recover from.

Good luck to the Fans Group who have bought them. They're going to need it bigtime.

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There, but for the grace of god, could be us.

If their fans haven't suffered enough they also have to make a 21 mile round trip for home games to their new ground share at Shildon AFC. Very unlikely they'll ever be a league club again.

Very sad indeed.Their troubles started with that bloke who'd been to jail a few times and was a bit of a megalomaniac-Reynolds i think he was called,built that white elephant of a stadium and tried to sign Asprilla.They could have stayed at their old place and developed it,nice little ground smack in the middle of Darlington.All the best to them in the long climb back up the leagues.Wonder what'll happen to their ground? They figured quite a lot in some of our successes-we beat them on the way to the FA cup semi final,Wembley 1996 and also Argyle clinched the championship at their place in 2002.

I always thought they were going to struggle because of their proximity to Newcastle, Middlesborough and Sunderland. 3 pretty big teams all within a stones throw of them.

Good write up of a fan and reporters perspective of it all from the Northern Echo:

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MMmmm but whats happened to them is what some fans wanted for Argyle, to start afresh with a fans group, 6 divisions down. I think we have been saved!!!

Greenskin wrote:

Very sad indeed.Their troubles started with that bloke who'd been to jail a few times and was a bit of a megalomaniac-Reynolds i think he was called,built that white elephant of a stadium and tried to sign Asprilla.They could have stayed at their old place and developed it,nice little ground smack in the middle of Darlington.

With respect, Darlo's troubles began long before George Reynolds bought control of the club.

Previous owners of the club had their eye on Feethams as a development site and the "new" stand they built was in fact a stand alone building designed to function as a conference/hotel/entertainment centre with a rake of seating bolted on to the side facing the pitch. Had they got their way, the club would have been closed down and the seating taken off whilst the rest of the ground was raised to the ground (which it has now!) awaiting development.

Believe it or not I had a conducted tour of that stand from Reynolds himself whilst I was waiting at the ground for Wes Saunders with his father who told me that Reynolds was hated by the local councilors because he had always ridden rough shod over them, building his own power station, incinerator plant and kitchen and bedroom furniture factories without planning permission; and always getting their objections overruled by the government because he was creating employment. Reynolds only went to prison once as a youth just out of national service when he nicked some gelignite left laying around a local quarry and used it to blow the safe containing the week's wages.

No doubt like many an "businessman" he'd done his share of tax avoidance and when the chance came for the establishment to hit him in later life they conspired to send him down again.

I think his development of the Arena was just another example of his expansive "two fingered" approach to local government, and they exacted revenge by severely limited the licences under which it could operate.

Feethams sits bulldozed and cleared in the centre of a nice market town on it's riverbank location, The Arena will sit rotting away unused on the outskirts of the town in a middle class village; and Darlington Football Club is now run by some naive fans who wasted £100,000 well meaningly donated by the community to fulfill last season's Conference fixtures only to see the club spat out by The Conference and shat on by the FA who have effectively said don't ever do this sort of thing but start your own phoenix club. That money could have been of far more use than the £530 they currently have to their name on which to run the club they have created.

Even at Feethams when Darlo were doing well under the old administration, they could attract five figure gates ~ that is a fact ~ but when they could only produce average or poor seasons on the pitch their gates went down to around the two and a half thousand mark. Those should have been sufficient on which to run a modest little club in a medium sized town, but some of the wages Darlo had put their manager and players on beggared belief!

Beware the fans of ANY club who well meaningly try to fund raise to get errant owners of the club they support out of the shit by paying off their debts and obligations to former employees for them and beware ANY knight in shining armour who wants to build a hotel on your ground!

merse wrote:

Greenskin wrote:

Very sad indeed.Their troubles started with that bloke who'd been to jail a few times and was a bit of a megalomaniac-Reynolds i think he was called,built that white elephant of a stadium and tried to sign Asprilla.They could have stayed at their old place and developed it,nice little ground smack in the middle of Darlington.

With respect, Darlo's troubles began long before George Reynolds bought control of the club.

Previous owners of the club had their eye on Feethams as a development site and the "new" stand they built was in fact a stand alone building designed to function as a conference/hotel/entertainment centre with a rake of seating bolted on to the side facing the pitch. Had they got their way, the club would have been closed down and the seating taken off whilst the rest of the ground was raised to the ground (which it has now!) awaiting development.

Believe it or not I had a conducted tour of that stand from Reynolds himself whilst I was waiting at the ground for Wes Saunders with his father who told me that Reynolds was hated by the local councilors because he had always ridden rough shod over them, building his own power station, incinerator plant and kitchen and bedroom furniture factories without planning permission; and always getting their objections overruled by the government because he was creating employment. Reynolds only went to prison once as a youth just out of national service when he nicked some gelignite left laying around a local quarry and used it to blow the safe containing the week's wages.

No doubt like many an "businessman" he'd done his share of tax avoidance and when the chance came for the establishment to hit him in later life they conspired to send him down again.

I think his development of the Arena was just another example of his expansive "two fingered" approach to local government, and they exacted revenge by severely limited the licences under which it could operate.

Feethams sits bulldozed and cleared in the centre of a nice market town on it's riverbank location, The Arena will sit rotting away unused on the outskirts of the town in a middle class village; and Darlington Football Club is now run by some naive fans who wasted £100,000 well meaningly donated by the community to fulfill last season's Conference fixtures only to see the club spat out by The Conference and shat on by the FA who have effectively said don't ever do this sort of thing but start your own phoenix club. That money could have been of far more use than the £530 they currently have to their name on which to run the club they have created.

Even at Feethams when Darlo were doing well under the old administration, they could attract five figure gates ~ that is a fact ~ but when they could only produce average or poor seasons on the pitch their gates went down to around the two and a half thousand mark. Those should have been sufficient on which to run a modest little club in a medium sized town, but some of the wages Darlo had put their manager and players on beggared belief!

Beware the fans of ANY club who well meaningly try to fund raise to get errant owners of the club they support out of the shit by paying off their debts and obligations to former employees for them and beware ANY knight in shining armour who wants to build a hotel on your ground!

Ahhhhhhhh but our leaders have looked into his eyes.

merse wrote:

Greenskin wrote:

Very sad indeed.Their troubles started with that bloke who'd been to jail a few times and was a bit of a megalomaniac-Reynolds i think he was called,built that white elephant of a stadium and tried to sign Asprilla.They could have stayed at their old place and developed it,nice little ground smack in the middle of Darlington.

With respect, Darlo's troubles began long before George Reynolds bought control of the club.

Previous owners of the club had their eye on Feethams as a development site and the "new" stand they built was in fact a stand alone building designed to function as a conference/hotel/entertainment centre with a rake of seating bolted on to the side facing the pitch. Had they got their way, the club would have been closed down and the seating taken off whilst the rest of the ground was raised to the ground (which it has now!) awaiting development.

Believe it or not I had a conducted tour of that stand from Reynolds himself whilst I was waiting at the ground for Wes Saunders with his father who told me that Reynolds was hated by the local councilors because he had always ridden rough shod over them, building his own power station, incinerator plant and kitchen and bedroom furniture factories without planning permission; and always getting their objections overruled by the government because he was creating employment. Reynolds only went to prison once as a youth just out of national service when he nicked some gelignite left laying around a local quarry and used it to blow the safe containing the week's wages.

No doubt like many an "businessman" he'd done his share of tax avoidance and when the chance came for the establishment to hit him in later life they conspired to send him down again.

I think his development of the Arena was just another example of his expansive "two fingered" approach to local government, and they exacted revenge by severely limited the licences under which it could operate.

Feethams sits bulldozed and cleared in the centre of a nice market town on it's riverbank location, The Arena will sit rotting away unused on the outskirts of the town in a middle class village; and Darlington Football Club is now run by some naive fans who wasted £100,000 well meaningly donated by the community to fulfill last season's Conference fixtures only to see the club spat out by The Conference and shat on by the FA who have effectively said don't ever do this sort of thing but start your own phoenix club. That money could have been of far more use than the £530 they currently have to their name on which to run the club they have created.

Even at Feethams when Darlo were doing well under the old administration, they could attract five figure gates ~ that is a fact ~ but when they could only produce average or poor seasons on the pitch their gates went down to around the two and a half thousand mark. Those should have been sufficient on which to run a modest little club in a medium sized town, but some of the wages Darlo had put their manager and players on beggared belief!

Beware the fans of ANY club who well meaningly try to fund raise to get errant owners of the club they support out of the shit by paying off their debts and obligations to former employees for them and beware ANY knight in shining armour who wants to build a hotel on your ground!

How did you get to see the blueprints for the new "Webb" stand at Home park?

pepsipete wrote:

There, but for the grace of god, could be us.

Or and indeed us too... Just knew that white elephant would be their ultimate down fall...

What a mess:

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