Things Have Changed

Thankfully, the situation is not the same as when I wrote this. When I wrote that I was pretty much in the depths of despair and convinced that it was the end of my beloved Darlington. I was sad but kind of resigned to the fact that it was going to be the end. I was even thinking through what team I was going to support. Someone suggested Manchester to me. I supposed that they meant United but either way the answer to that would be, 'Um, NO! Are you kidding??!' No Premiership teams for me, thank you! I support the underdog. Unless, of course, the team that I am supporting gets to the Premiership of their own accord. I'm not going to give up supporting them if they do that. Hopefully, it will be Darlington whom I support in the Premiership sometime. And, yes, I doubt that that will be in the next five years!

It appears that Darlington have a new buyer. His name is Raj Singh and he was the popular choice..... dare I say only choice.... to take over the club. Is it weird that I am not excited? Really. I'm not. At all. I mean Darlington have been saved! But my question is, for how long? When I first started supporting the club at the end of 99/00 season things were good. I mean, really good. Well, you know, apart from having a crook as the chairman. At that point George Reynolds was still parade around the ground with Darlo scarf held high being hailed as the be all and end all of DFC. He promised the world - new stadium, Premiership in five years. He had saved Darlington from the brink of extinction and could do anything.We were going to the Division 3 playoff final. The last at the old Wembley. We had a great team who really should have won automatic promotion and it was all hunky dory. Well, we didn't win promotion. We lost to a Peterborough side that played worse than us in the horrible conditions at Wembley that night.

It was downhill from there. Endless flirtations with relegation, an enormous and useless (although beautiful) stadium that really wasn't necessary at that point in time and a chairman acting like a dictator that you come across in recent history books. Thankfully, his reign of terror was not over a country but over a small football club and didn't extend from that.

He then put us into administration a couple of months after the stadium was opened and was later arrested for money laundering.

I was overjoyed when Darlo were taken over by new owners - The Sterling Consortium. We were Reynolds free! Hurrah! Since then Darlo have been doing ok on the pitch. We have been in the top half of the table consistently. Two years in a row we placed 8th which is one place below the play off places.

Blah, blah. Anyway, George Houghton became chairman in 2006 and we went into administration in 2009. We nearly went out of business and now have a new owner...... except old chairman Houghton is still involved.

Forgive me for being sceptical.

Maybe it is because I have been so far removed from the club as for basically the past two seasons I have been 3000 miles away. I only saw one Darlo game in that time and it was a preseason friendly against Leeds (0-0 in case you were wondering, or even if you weren't). Or maybe it is because Ryan Valentine left the club (two different links btw). What is even the point now?? I say that in jest but I will reserve my happiness about having a new owner until something good actually comes from it. So I guess that we will just have to wait and see. Don't get me wrong, I hope that this is a great thing for DFC. We need a break. A good run of things - like Hull, who my Dad and I watched in their old stadium, Boothferry Park, playing against Darlo in Division 2 on the day that the Queen Mother died, who now play in the Premiership. I'll just settle for moving out of League 2. Behind Rochdale, we have been in the basement league for the longest time of any club. They have been in Division 4/3/League 2 (all the same league) for 35 years. We've been there since 1992. I'm done with League 2. I'd rather move up than down though. League 1, here we come....... please?

Just need to rebuild the squad now...........

So we are safe. For now. It'll be interesting if nothing else!

Here's to another 125 years!