The Northern League season

[bigfatpete]

Congratulations on a wonderful season, culminating in a superb title clinching performance. I am already looking forward to taking in some National League North games at Heritage Park (and hopefully Blackwell Meadows) next year.
It was, with hindsight, a blessing in disguise that the FA placed Darlington in the Northern League as it gave you time to build the squad you have now. Plunging you into Conference North (as it was then) with no ground to play on, could have led to the complete demise of the club. The Northern League season gave you breathing space and an opportunity to build up the momentum that has carried you forward so well. Players like Galbraith, Hunter, Brown and Scott (the last three all former Shildon players) have all improved in a team that has got better each season. Success encourages players, while hanging on for grim death in a higher league can have the opposite effect.
Martin Gray has done a fantastic job and there must be clubs in the National League and the Football League looking at him. I hope you can keep him.
Once again, congratulations. I have enjoyed watching Darlington this season and hope to see further success in the future.

[joejaques]

Cheers mate. Personally I'm hoping that MG's ties with his academy will keep him with us for the forseeable future. Maybe that's blind optimism, but this morning I reckon I'm entitled to it.

[Makka Pakka]

You may be right BFP about the difficulty of starting at a higher level than the NL but we were never going into the Conference North. The Conference had already or would have kicked us out due to their rules about administration before the FA had their go at us.
Starting afresh in the Evo Stik Premier would have been very difficult because it IS 2 levels above the NL despite what some down there would say.

[QuakerPete]

Congratulations on a wonderful season, culminating in a superb title clinching performance. I am already looking forward to taking in some National League North games at Heritage Park (and hopefully Blackwell Meadows) next year.
It was, with hindsight, a blessing in disguise that the FA placed Darlington in the Northern League as it gave you time to build the squad you have now. Plunging you into Conference North (as it was then) with no ground to play on, could have led to the complete demise of the club. The Northern League season gave you breathing space and an opportunity to build up the momentum that has carried you forward so well. Players like Galbraith, Hunter, Brown and Scott (the last three all former Shildon players) have all improved in a team that has got better each season. Success encourages players, while hanging on for grim death in a higher league can have the opposite effect.
Martin Gray has done a fantastic job and there must be clubs in the National League and the Football League looking at him. I hope you can keep him.
Once again, congratulations. I have enjoyed watching Darlington this season and hope to see further success in the future.

Completely agree with those sentiments, although I feel we were harshly treated as a club it has proved to be a blessing in disguise. It has brought about a camaraderie through adversity which couldn't have been generated otherwise.
It has given us that breathing space to get into gear - and boy, what a ride it's been so far. Long may it continue!

[Darlo_Pete]

Gray has been offered a full-time job at a club, but said he only wants to go full-time at one club and that's Darlo. Thanks for your kind comments Pete.

[Spyman]

I recall probably 18 months ago someone starting a discussion along the lines of "who is responsible for sacking Martin Gray".

Seems a long time ago now!

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[spen666]

Martin Gray has done a fantastic job as manager.

In each of the 4 season he has been manager, I do not think Darlington have had the most talented squad in the Division, but he has wrung out of the squad a consistently high level of performances.

The run at the end of this season has been incredible. Its not too long ago the debate on here was about whether Darlington could get into the play offs.

It would be incredible for a team of full time professionals to have gone on such a run playing once or twice a week, let alone part timers playing 3 times a week.

It would not surprise me if clubs in the Football League would not be interested in him as manager. Whether they could afford him is another matter (as he has his own business outside of managing Darlo)

Over the last 4 years he has undoubtedly been the best manager outside of the football league.

[super_les_mcjannet]

I recall probably 18 months ago someone starting a discussion along the lines of "who is responsible for sacking Martin Gray".

Seems a long time ago now!

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It was around September time last season when we had Dowson & Amar out injured and Thompson was not firing, whilst Armstrong was only Graeme Armstrong not as he is now Graeme F***ing Armstrong.

Played too much hoof ball some said, granted we did play a bit too much long ball but the main issue was players missing at the time.

[Neil Johnson]

Congratulations on a wonderful season, culminating in a superb title clinching performance. I am already looking forward to taking in some National League North games at Heritage Park (and hopefully Blackwell Meadows) next year.
It was, with hindsight, a blessing in disguise that the FA placed Darlington in the Northern League as it gave you time to build the squad you have now. Plunging you into Conference North (as it was then) with no ground to play on, could have led to the complete demise of the club. The Northern League season gave you breathing space and an opportunity to build up the momentum that has carried you forward so well. Players like Galbraith, Hunter, Brown and Scott (the last three all former Shildon players) have all improved in a team that has got better each season. Success encourages players, while hanging on for grim death in a higher league can have the opposite effect.
Martin Gray has done a fantastic job and there must be clubs in the National League and the Football League looking at him. I hope you can keep him.
Once again, congratulations. I have enjoyed watching Darlington this season and hope to see further success in the future.

Great Summary.

Darlo may be less consistent in what looks like a competitive Conference, North, but I hope for a good start with big crowds, to get the ball rolling.

I'm sure that Darlo will try their best anyway, continuing on from the last four impressive seasons.

Play-off potential and 2 good Cup runs in store?

[jjljks]

Glad you enjoyed watching Darlington (and also omitting the 1883 tag!), just hope we can count on you and others to continue attending at Blackwell Meadows next season when things will be harder. Hopefully, the groundworks will ensure a decently drained pitch, so we don't get the fixture congestion that plagued us at HP although they have been gracious landlords over a difficult time for the club. If it hadn't been for the generosity of Spennymoor, we could have come to grief at the final hurdle so I hope they get their reward in the playoffs