Darlington 1883: The Phoenix Club Still On The Rise

When George Reynolds bought Darlington in 1999 he promised to take them from Division 3 to the Premier League. He even built a 25,000 seater stadium and named it after himself. Tie this in with failed attempts to sign Paul Gascoigne and Faustino Asprillia in 2002 it looked like Darlington had found themselves a rather eccentric chairman but somebody that wanted to help the club progress. What this actually was, was the start of the slow decline of the proud club.

The Reynolds/Darlington arena

In 2003 the club slipped into administration after Reynolds had financed the stadium costs with high interest loans, and with the stadium getting less then 50% attendance the bills started to pile up.In early 2004 Reynolds stepped down but despite the off field problems surrounding the club, then manager David Hodgson managed to guide the club to league safety.

Various owners and managers tried to get the club on track and after another spell in administration the club won the FA trophy in 2011. This was unfortunately not the catalyst to get the club back on the level and the club entered administration again for the third and final time. The FA decided to demote the club four divisions, this decision was appealed but the FA decided that the club was being reformed and banned the name Darlington FC being used. This led to the Name Darlington 1883 being chosen as this was the year the club was originally formed.

This is where the story takes a turn for the better......

Darlington 1883

After agreeing a ground share with Bishop Auckland who were based 12 miles outside of Darlington, the club began their assault on the league to get back to where they belong. The first challenge was to get out of was the Northern league, they did this with almost ease. Darlington finished the season with 122 points and scored 145 goals and set a new average attendance record of 1300 which was about three times the previous record. A further two promotions in quick succession has seen the club get to the Vanarama national. The season has started strongly for the Quakers and sees them currently sitting at the top of the table with thirteen points from the first five games.

The fans have never given up on the club and showed a community spirit to help Darlington rise through the leagues and continue their quest to return to the football league and hopefully soon return to their home back in Darlington.