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Andy Larkin

A heartfelt plea from a Darlington fan

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[quote user="Andy Larkin"]Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere but it makes for a powerful read… imagine not being able to go and support your team cos they aren''t in existence anymore?

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http://www.darlofc.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15733
[/quote]

One of the most moving and uplifting things I''ve read for a long time. George Reynolds deserves to be strung up for what he did to that club.

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I just read this after a retweet from Hucks and came on here to post the link with a tear in my eye.... Moving.

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wow what a read, that sums up the passion every fan has for there club.

As ever in these cases its the loyal fans who suffer most and yes has brought a lump to my throat.  Could have easily been us in the same position

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[quote user="Nuff Said"]Whereas if it was 1p5wich....[/quote]Me… I think I would still have a similar feeling if I''m honest.I know one 1p5wich fan that writes regularly for WSC and he''s always expressed the love he has for his club and football in general in a way that strikes a chord. It''s correct that we despise their every being but I wouldn''t want them to become extinct.As for their paper wavers (assuming they only had Monopoly money)… well that''s another matter!

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Was thinking that if there was ever a last ever norwich game i dont think i could attend being too sad, a darlo fan posted the same thing but said the post had inspired him to make it! Great piece. Good luck darlington!

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[quote user="City penguin"]Was thinking that if there was ever a last ever norwich game i dont think i could attend being too sad, a darlo fan posted the same thing but said the post had inspired him to make it! Great piece. Good luck darlington![/quote]

Its a pity the courts didn''t take the same decision when dealing with Portsmouth, and now they are back to square 1,

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"Whereas if it was 1p5wich....Me… I think I would still have a similar feeling if I''m honest."I would feel sorry for every ipswich fan who objected to the way the club was run when so many local traders were lied to by their chairman David Sheepshanks and subsequently lost money.I would feel sorry for any town fan that expressed concern and disquiet that their club was being run on money they were defrauding the tax office of.I heard of them applauding Billy Sharpe after the death of his child in a manner that suggested they were hoping such action might encourage him to join them, I also heard the sick chants at the loss of Bryan Gunn''s daughter also. Sadly I have yet to hear of one of these fans expressing anything that comes near to an apology or regret. If they have met a bigger shyster and fraud who cares little for the consequences of his deceit so be it. A club with a bit more honesty would not be in the position where they had to hand over everything to a company like Marcus Evans.Maybe they, and a few of our fans, might care to consider how they ended up with Marcus Evans and at what point did they decide that what they were doing for the past decade or so was ''wrong''.

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There must be 100s of football clubs that are obsolete now for one reason or another that fans were equally as fanatical about. Sh!t happens, you just hope it never happens to you.

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It very nearly did happen to us. The banks had pretty much pulled the plug on us in 1995. Hence why we sold Ward and Newsome in double quick time. But for Geoffrey Walting (twice!) and the subsequently generosity of Delia and Michael since then, who knows where we would be.

It is a very moving post and a very sad story. How Reynolds ever thought a club of Darlington''s stature and size could justify having a 20,000 all seater stadium is beyond me. It has been a noose around the clubs neck ever since. Football has always given me massive buzz since I was very little. To be deprived of that on a Saturday would be devasting. So give em hell on Saturday at Barrow!

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[quote user="The Jewish Cowboy"]There must be 100s of football clubs that are obsolete now for one reason or another that fans were equally as fanatical about. Sh!t happens, you just hope it never happens to you.[/quote]Its this kinda attitude which would have seen us sit by in ''39. You''d be happy with Borussia Warsaw and Bayern Krakov annexing the UEFA Cup now? You ok with VfB Shrewsbury and Eintract Oldham? Think on eh?

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[quote user="Jacko"]It very nearly did happen to us. The banks had pretty much pulled the plug on us in 1995. Hence why we sold Ward and Newsome in double quick time. But for Geoffrey Walting (twice!) and the subsequently generosity of Delia and Michael since then, who knows where we would be.

It is a very moving post and a very sad story. How Reynolds ever thought a club of Darlington''s stature and size could justify having a 20,000 all seater stadium is beyond me. It has been a noose around the clubs neck ever since. Football has always given me massive buzz since I was very little. To be deprived of that on a Saturday would be devasting. So give em hell on Saturday at Barrow![/quote]Just been reading about the ground on Wikipedia. That''s insane! It also says that there''s an attendance cap of 10000 anyway due to poor access roads around the ground! [:S]

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I''m sure there''s a story about wood used in the concourses - mahogany I think.

You pass the stadium on the train on the way to Newcastle and Edinburgh, an absolute total white elephant. It made no sense when they built it and even less now.

I wonder how Hartlepool fans feel their local rivals used to be in same division.

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[quote user="norfolkchance1"]I''m sure there''s a story about wood used in the concourses - mahogany I think. You pass the stadium on the train on the way to Newcastle and Edinburgh, an absolute total white elephant. It made no sense when they built it and even less now. I wonder how Hartlepool fans feel their local rivals used to be in same division.[/quote]

 

Reynolds built it as a lasting memorial to himself with no regard to the realities of actually filling it. He said that he would take Darlo into the Premier League and, in fact, it''s got on of the largest capacities outside the Prem. It''s just an ego trip, but one which has weighed the club down ever since construction.

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[quote user="mikewalker"][quote user="The Jewish Cowboy"]There must be 100s of football clubs that are obsolete now for one reason or another that fans were equally as fanatical about. Sh!t happens, you just hope it never happens to you.[/quote]Its this kinda attitude which would have seen us sit by in ''39. You''d be happy with Borussia Warsaw and Bayern Krakov annexing the UEFA Cup now? You ok with VfB Shrewsbury and Eintract Oldham? Think on eh?[/quote]Comedy gold [:D]

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Heartbreaking. Hope they can find a way out of it, COME ON DARLO!

And if it was Ipswich, I''d feel the exact same. Quoting songs and Bryan Gunn chants is all well and good, but it''s about 50 out of 20,000 that go everyweek. The Billy Sharp clapping was a genuine heartfelt thing to do and it''s wrong that it should be taken in any other way in my opinion.

Anyway, too much kindness there. P1ss off Ipswich!

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[quote user="mikewalker"][quote user="The Jewish Cowboy"]There must be 100s of football clubs that are obsolete now for one reason or another that fans were equally as fanatical about. Sh!t happens, you just hope it never happens to you.[/quote]Its this kinda attitude which would have seen us sit by in ''39. You''d be happy with Borussia Warsaw and Bayern Krakov annexing the UEFA Cup now? You ok with VfB Shrewsbury and Eintract Oldham? Think on eh?[/quote]

wouldnt be all bad, would have terracing still, match ticket would be 15DM, would be aloud to drink as much beer during the game as we liked....

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Their old ground Feethams hasn''t been built on, the land is their if the stands are not, and is overgrown. You can see it on Google Earth. I reckon their most positive step would be to try and move away from the white elephant and look towards trying to get a stadium back at Feethams in the same sort of design as Burton or Scunthorpe with a smaller capacity. Clearly that would take money, it may even need the club to start out again AFC Wimbledon style and put it in the ownership of the fans.

I just looked on Wikipedia and population in 2001 was 97000, it would need more than a quarter of people living there to go to get a sell out. When you consider that Middlesbrough isn''t far away and for most of last decade were a premiership club it is never going to happen so they need to move away.

I think it is a lesson to people to be careful what they wish for with new owners etc promises of new stadiums.

It must be eerie for players and fans who go to games there, especially with opposition fans taking the rise every week.

Hope they get out of trouble and fight on, I fear though for them to really progress it needs to get a lot worse before it gets better. If they just get out of admin and carry on as they have done before theyll end up back in same place.

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[quote user="City penguin"][quote user="mikewalker"][quote user="The Jewish Cowboy"]There must be 100s of football clubs that are obsolete now for one reason or another that fans were equally as fanatical about. Sh!t happens, you just hope it never happens to you.[/quote]Its this kinda attitude which would have seen us sit by in ''39. You''d be happy with Borussia Warsaw and Bayern Krakov annexing the UEFA Cup now? You ok with VfB Shrewsbury and Eintract Oldham? Think on eh?[/quote]

wouldnt be all bad, would have terracing still, match ticket would be 15DM, would be aloud to drink as much beer during the game as we liked....[/quote]

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[quote user="City penguin"][quote user="mikewalker"][quote user="The Jewish Cowboy"]There must be 100s of football clubs that are obsolete now for one reason or another that fans were equally as fanatical about. Sh!t happens, you just hope it never happens to you.[/quote]Its this kinda attitude which would have seen us sit by in ''39. You''d be happy with Borussia Warsaw and Bayern Krakov annexing the UEFA Cup now? You ok with VfB Shrewsbury and Eintract Oldham? Think on eh?[/quote]

wouldnt be all bad, would have terracing still, match ticket would be 15DM, would be aloud to drink as much beer during the game as we liked....[/quote]You wouldn''t be able to sign Yossi Benayoun.

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[quote user="Mister Chops"][quote user="City penguin"][quote user="mikewalker"][quote user="The Jewish Cowboy"]There must be 100s of football clubs that are obsolete now for one reason or another that fans were equally as fanatical about. Sh!t happens, you just hope it never happens to you.[/quote]Its this kinda attitude which would have seen us sit by in ''39. You''d be happy with Borussia Warsaw and Bayern Krakov annexing the UEFA Cup now? You ok with VfB Shrewsbury and Eintract Oldham? Think on eh?[/quote]

wouldnt be all bad, would have terracing still, match ticket would be 15DM, would be aloud to drink as much beer during the game as we liked....[/quote]You wouldn''t be able to sign Yossi Benayoun.[/quote]

Jew don''t know that for certain.

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Having lived in Darlo for 5 years until about a year ago I''ve watched this unfold fairly closely.

I have a couple of mate''s who are Darlo fans who I feel a little sorry for but I have very little sympathy with the club and the way it''s been run.

It really has been the stadium that''s done it, seriously why build a 20,000 seater when you barely fill 10% of it, its biggest crowd was an Elton John gig about 2-3 years back.

When you have Middlesbrough 15 minutes down the A66 and Leeds, Sunderland and Newcastle all within an hour you are always going to struggle to pull in a crowd. Last year the town held a civic reception for the team as they won the FA Trophy, 7000 turned up, 3 times the average attendance. Maybe if these ''fans'' went to the games they wouldn''t be in this trouble. Just saying...

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Got to feel sorry for their fans, but it sounds like their pretty done for. But it sounds like they have been really badly run. Theirs being ambitious and then theres being stupid, and building a 25,000 capacity ground for a league two team who get low crowds with loades of established premier league teams nearby is a ludicrous idea and it must be a massive burden on them. Infact you wonder whether moving out of that ground might be the best idea as its hard to see how this isnt going to happen again with that ground.

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Good luck to Darlo. For their fans sake you''ve got to hope they can do the same as Pymouth Argyle and pull through it against the odds.Would be tragic to lose your team.If I wasn''t off to Carrow Road today I''d go and give them some support.

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feel for the fans but its the 3rd time its happened to the darlo now.. the 3rd time they pay a reduced amount to their creditors, the 3rd time they cant pay back the local businessman who may need the money to keep his family fed.Goodbye DArlington... im sad for your fans but you have done it too many times now.

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[quote user="jas the barclay king"]feel for the fans but its the 3rd time its happened to the darlo now.. the 3rd time they pay a reduced amount to their creditors, the 3rd time they cant pay back the local businessman who may need the money to keep his family fed.Goodbye DArlington... im sad for your fans but you have done it too many times now.[/quote]Ironic then that they lost 3-0 today perhaps ?Even if it is all over for them for the present I''m sure they''ll re-group and rise again.

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