Signs.
http://www.darlington-fc.net/page/NewsD ... 57,00.html

Surprise, surprise, another Irish lad! Played a good amount of games for Aberdeen so seems to come from a half decent pedigree for this level at least.

Back up for Giddings I presume?

9 games in the last 2 seasons according to that, strange one if you ask me

Looks solid enough on paper and is a big lad at 6 foot 1, will be useful cover for the centre of defence considering we're down to Dan Burn if either White or Miller get injured and cant start as well as left back. Also probably shows the Foster situ is no closer to being concluded.

Didn't we say these things about Fortune last pre season

I've been told he has being released Not confirmation though.

Well it makes no sense to keep him here and pay his wages for the remainder of the season and then release him when we can get shot now and save a few bob from tax & NI

Plus it gives him the option of signing up to another club before the end of the season if the release papers are signed before the window closes.

I expect the club will have been trying to get him a loan move and if nothing has materialised then a release could well be the next best thing for both the club & foster.

Steve Staunton made a beat-the-deadline signing today by snapping up Irish defender Richie Byrne.

http://www.darlofc.co.uk/news.php?NewsID=181

Also good to see one of the youngsters head out for some experience.

I've only seen Dan Riley play at the Gateshead friendly a while back but he looked like a player with a decent amount of potential.

At least he has some kind of pedigree coming from Aberdeen, although he hasnt played much recently. Got to be a better bet than dragging lads up from non league level.

Considering he's probably being signed as back-up to a lad who we got from non-league?

Ha! Fair point. What I meant to say was I see signings like this as usually being a safer bet than unknown quantities from non-league.

Do L2 clubs sign 28-year-old fullbacks as back-up though? I wonder whether Giddings isn't being moved into the 'one for the future' category, out of which we can pretty well make an entire starting XI now. It is an odd signing, although that doesn't necessarily mean he's not a good one.

Agreed! Wonder how his fitness is with him not playing much...the last thing we need is another for the 'long-term injury and ultimately forgotten' list!

having done some reading up on the lad it seems injuries have dogged his career, altho when fit he seems to be a quality player, he's played at a higher level than ours for the most part of his career, so if we can keep him fit he'll be an asset.

he can operate at LB, CB and in midfield, a big strong aggresive lad, sounds good, lets see.....

oh and the aberdeen fans reckon he looked terrible at LB but was much better at CB