Feethams Stadium, home of Darlington FC 1883-2003

Feethams Stadium, home of Darlington FC 1883-2003

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am i rememebering wrong, but i was in school at the time, but didn't someone buy Darlington, then build like a 20,000 seater stadium, and they couldn't get like 5000 fans on a weekly basis, went broke, and got relegated to the non leagues ?

am i rememebering wrong, but i was in school at the time, but didn't someone buy Darlington, then build like a 20,000 seater stadium, and they couldn't get like 5000 fans on a weekly basis, went broke, and got relegated to the non leagues ?

Yes the Darlington arena. It was 25,000 I believe. Im not sure how it’s used now

am i rememebering wrong, but i was in school at the time, but didn't someone buy Darlington, then build like a 20,000 seater stadium, and they couldn't get like 5000 fans on a weekly basis, went broke, and got relegated to the non leagues ?

Yes the Darlington arena. It was 25,000 I believe. Im not sure how it’s used now

I remember watching Darlington come to Penydarren Park that year

am i rememebering wrong, but i was in school at the time, but didn't someone buy Darlington, then build like a 20,000 seater stadium, and they couldn't get like 5000 fans on a weekly basis, went broke, and got relegated to the non leagues ?

I think their owner was jailed for some kind of fraud and then it all went downhill. Do Darlington even exist as a club now?

Anyone remember who we signed from Darlington. He was a super player for them in the lower leagues, but never really cut it with us, and the career in Welsh capital was a short one........

A Certain Gary Gill...

Feethams Stadium, home of Darlington FC 1883-2003

That’s really sad to see Ian,

I went there many times with Cardiff.

am i rememebering wrong, but i was in school at the time, but didn't someone buy Darlington, then build like a 20,000 seater stadium, and they couldn't get like 5000 fans on a weekly basis, went broke, and got relegated to the non leagues ?

Yes the Darlington arena. It was 25,000 I believe. Im not sure how it’s used now

I remember watching Darlington come to Penydarren Park that year

I was at that game, City were not playing, massive crowd for Merthyr, about 250 Darlington fans.

am i rememebering wrong, but i was in school at the time, but didn't someone buy Darlington, then build like a 20,000 seater stadium, and they couldn't get like 5000 fans on a weekly basis, went broke, and got relegated to the non leagues ?

I think their owner was jailed for some kind of fraud and then it all went downhill. Do Darlington even exist as a club now?

i believe so, he even named the stadium after himself if i remember correctly, and then when he got done for fraud or money laundering whatever it was, they changed the name, think it cost Darlington £20m to build the stadium, suffered several administrations due to it, and then sold it to a rugby side for £2m.

Talking about this owner if its the right one he tried to bring in Asprilla who played for Newcastle. Asprilla trained with them but last minutes got offered a contract out in the Middle East so decided to go out there. As you can imagine it did not go down too well with this owner.

The owner was George Reynolds and he was done for Tax evasion.

Reynolds became the chairman of Darlington Football Club in 1999 and built the team a new stadium costing £20 million, which he named after himself. Reynolds was originally very popular with fans but he then took the club into administration and left the club in January 2004, just months after the new 25,000-seat stadium (one of the largest stadiums outside the Premier League) was opened. The stadium was renamed shortly afterwards. Darlington goalkeeper David Preece said shortly after he was transferred to Aberdeen F.C., the day before his debut against Celtic F.C., Reynolds called him threatening to cancel the transfer unless Preece signed a waiver of his £45,000 signing-on fee.

He famously declared his ambition to take Darlington into the Premier League, and when he took the club over they had been in the Football League's basement division since 1992. The new stadium did nothing to improve their on-field fortunes, and they did not move out of the basement division of the Football League until 2010 - when they were relegated to the Conference. The club was later relegated four divisions to the Northern Football League Division One and forced to reform as a new club, Darlington 1883, owned by the fans.

Remember booking with Adar Glas
(Mair Daniels) to go there on a Tuesday night probably about 1986,by the time we got to Cardiff to pick up the last few travelling they realised they had overbooked by two so asked for two volunteers to get off bus and I obliged with some one else and off we went to Darlington by train...we got there eventually after a few changes only missing the first 15 minutes...We lost the game 4-1 and I eventually got home about 1pm on the Wednesday via Kings Cross.!!!

Went there to watch york city play back in the very early 90s as a teenager as lived in york due to the parents army life so had to have my football fix watching york then when i wasnt back in wales. Sad to see old grounds now gone or just waste land.

Went there in 94(I think), Pike scored 2.. going in to the away end, there was a 1” kerb going onto the terrace. I don’t know how many of our fans tripped over it on the way in. ‘Twas then I realised some of our fans may have a drink problem..
Football seemed more real then..