I find it surprising that NL Players would be doing the 2nd division in Darlington. NL players who I have played with are streets ahead of the District league. I would guess their club(s) didn't know about this. If true, you would need to question how serious the NL is. There is a school of thought that the NL is better than the Evo and the FA vase outocmes seem to confirm that. My only issue with the NL is that most of the clubs donb't appear to have any pyramid aspirations.

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This empty sanitised shell of a stadium, a cathedral to the vanity and narcissism of one man. It’s very difficult to fall in love with football amongst the rows of empty seats. The notion that a stadium has worth beyond its potential commerical value or it’s proximity to transport links – as a spiritual repository of the hopes,fears and agonies of generations of supporters, or as a physical manifestation of the football club in the community, is a dying one in football (Sam Volkman)

I hate idiotic posts like this.

No one knows until the FA make there decision and this stupid speculation doent help anyone. Lock this thread and get rid of it.

Can we not just wait until next friday's decision?????

I think a lot of ppl on here will get a big shock when they see what our actual fan base is next season , whatever league we are in. I hope im wrong .
Also i wish ppl would just wait and see what the fa have to say. Instead of panicking like idiots on here to every rumor they read on here !

Just to put it into context 90% of Spennymoor's side play for Hetton Lyons in the Durham and District Sunday League (and earn extra for doing this).

Most NL players also play Sunday football.

I stopped playing in the Darlington District League a couple of seasons ago and they were generally always a handful of players who played NL also played on the Sunday. When they were playing in Division 2 that was generally because they were playing in a newly formed team who were pretty much at the top of the table. A number of ex DFC youth players who were from the area played. A good few years ago the mighty Lee Ellison played for Coundon I believe.

It would make sense that the FA HQ peeps would contact the senior officials from all of the leagues we could possibly be relegated into.
I think people are getting panicky just because someone said that so-and-so heard that a NL official had said....

Chinese whispers.

The FA alone will decide and there's nowt much we can do for now expect for presenting a positive public image of the club.

3 west auckland players were sacked last night after they lost another final because they played for their sunday league teams the night before.

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Don't hate us just because you aren't us.

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Got to admit love it, I thought more than twice about creating the thread last night when I seen the tweet. Main reasons I added it was,

1) It would be put on here anyhow,
2) Ray was correct on the ground move, when people were still stating that we would be at the arena
3.) This is generally what we discuss on the message board, rumour, counter rumour etc. We even discuss facts as if they are rumours at times.

I hope Ray's information is correct and it was before the meeting and since the meeting the FA have pushed us up a level or so as Dennis plea for us was successful.

I don't understand those fans saying "I won't watch us in the Northern League". Why not? Other than another promotion being required what is the difference between the NL and Evostick 1?

I’ve never felt the same about Darlo since George Reynolds took over. Yes, that first season was fantastic up until the last third of the season - great players, great football, great atmosphere - but in the back of my mind, nagging at me like a nodding dog on the dashboard, was that Mission Impossible comment about Reynolds when he was first mooted as the potential savior. As soon as he revealed his plans for the Arena, I was convinced that our road to ruin was firmly set in stone. The move to Arena was really the first nail in my Darlo supporting coffin, Reynolds actions when things started to go wrong was another, and Admin another.

Even Reynolds went, I didn’t get my enthusiasm for Darlo back. The way Houghton got rid of Hodgson and brought in Sotnick were more nails, and the second Admin was the final nail in the coffin, especially the way the club just appeared to deliberately shaft everyone. I was ashamed to call myself a Darlo supporter at that time.

Under Singh, I still followed the club, bought my season ticket and planned my visits to my parents for when Darlo were at home, but I didn’t have same enthusiasm or feeling for the club. Yes, I enjoyed Wembley and all that but when the s*** hit the fan last year it really didn’t bother me that much. I thought this was it and expected the club to fold. I wasn't bothered about a phoenix club - I’m not from Darlo, and have never lived there. I was actually disappointed that I’d seen a couple of games this season (Kiddy and Barrow at home) instead of my last sight of Darlo being Ian Miller lifting the Trophy at Wembley! I donated to DUFF for the players at Barrow, and just accepted that that was it.

I wasn’t bothered about, the bad run off form, relegation and all that. Even DFC 1883 buying the club and leaving the Arena made no difference. Then I read threads about lapsed fans who are returning because they believe they are getting their club back. And I realised that I am one of those fans - I feel that this is a chance to get my Darlo is back, and I want to be a part of it, regardless of which League we are in. And if it is to be the Northern League, well it gives us another chance to get to Wembley.

He ceratinly did, played a few games agianst him for the mighty Shuttle and Gloom.

To be honest I am just hoping this is all chinese whispers, I am sure all leagues will need to be asked if they would accept us, so hopefully this is just a case of people talking saying we have been asked if darlo can play and just got out of control.

Lets just wait and see.

I am glad you have come on here and said this.

You speak for many people who just stopped coming to matches for one reason or another.
See the other thread (somewhere!) about average attendances at the arena and look at the figures provided by Quakerz.
Good start - then a slow decline - then a huge off-the-cliff type fall in 2008 as the greedy owners shoved the admission price up to £18.

I sincerely hope there are more people out there like you.

Ultimately what this is all about, what everyone is trying to do here, is to take back what is theirs and prevent anyone from ever taking it away again.

If there are any more lapsed fans out there, people who walked away when Chairman Stooge the 1st landed, those people who maybe visited the arena once or twice and never returned - it would be interesting to hear your story and how you feel now.

I echo pretty much word for word that post above. I live 260 miles away and used to follow away games, then i got sick of the rip off grounds etc, got heavily into Non League football and groundhopping and gradually didnt bother to plan my visits around home games. I thought they should have left the Arena and gone Phoenix at the first admin so I am not in the hindsight club on that one.

The comment above is spot on about the timing of my loss of interest. I can remember doing a couple of games at £10-£12 and they weren't great (lower level non league is generally more a lot open than a mid table League 2 match) but £18 to watch the last game I saw there wasnt clever. I remember pondering ticking off the Riverside as they had a Sunday game and i could have got in there for £22!!

Totally buy into a fans club and will be looking forward to some Northern League "ticks" though I would rather they got placed in the NPL, which I still think is what will happen (Chester being the precedent).

Going down to the Northern League level would be a disaster and as Q has said we'd have paid all that money for nothing. 1883 would have to answer some serious questions if that happens. But at the end of the day I'd still support my beloved Darlo and we'd have a derby almost every week.

"all that money for nothing"??????? £100K=£70K was already in the pot to help buy some breathing space/finnish the season/give us options, an additional £30K sealed the deal which gives us the opertunity to maintain 129 years of history ,and possibly repay some of the creditors at some stage ( eg players) hindsight is great and we may well end up where we'd have started if we'd gone pop but in my eyes it was well worth the gamble.

"...1883 would have to answer some pretty serious questions..."

Do you think 1883 have done an inadequate job in fighting our club's corner with the FA?

Notwithstanding the fact that the FA invited 1883 to Wembley, a good case was prepared and legal representative was taken along too and a "positive" meeting was held, the 3 brave souls who put their necks on the line here are now having to listen to the sound of sharpening knives from the "..I told you so.." gang.
I presume you're not happy about paying the legal costs either?

You declare your undying support in your many other posts - so where were you when the 1883 board were being set up?
Where was your unbeatable case to take to the FA?

The FA will do what the FA will do and the 1883 reps could only do what they could do.

I think it maybe a case of the FA covering its back and then they can say that gave us every chance to make representations to them and so avoiding us being able to say that they didn't give us every chance to fight our case.

@Darlo_Pete,

Very wishy washy reply there!

You said....
"...1883 would have to answer some pretty serious questions..."

Let's hear a sample of "serious" questions then!

Some real serious s*** knowing Pete, when did Port Darlington change it's name to Middlesbrough and why didn't 1883 stop this? and he deserves an answer to a serious question

I don't understand some people, when the club was going pop grown adults more or less declared they would watch a load of Labradors playing with a ball in the park as long as it was DFC as they simply couldn't accept life on a Saturday without singing songs at grown men, but everytime there is some bullshit spread that is not even confirmed the toys are out of the pram and they say it's over.

Whatever happens the quality of football will be shite, irrespective of the league, it's going to be a long haul with lots of twists, get on board or do something else.

Finally a number_one post I agree with.

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I am still hopeful that the FA may give us a start above Northern League. After all they have given 1883 "advice" all the way through Administration.

The FA advised that the CVA would not be acceptable with the Raj clauses in place. 1883 could still have gone ahead with that CVA which would have probably been legally acceptable although it would have meant demotion from BSN to Evostick Premier. This "advice" led to us failing to reach settlement on a CVA and only agreeing to pay footballing debts as well as throwing the issue of funding into a tailspin with the closure of the Crowdcube pitch.

The FA required a firm agreement in place for a ground for next season even though 1883 may have been well advised to keep their options open and make a conditional agreement with S & S to stay at the Arena if we were allocated above a certain level and a similar conditional agreement with Shildon if allocated below a commercially viable level. Which decision has probably condemed us to a further demotion on ground grading.

There should also be due consideration of our efforts to complete the last season rather than fold and give BSP a mess to sort out mid season.

I hope that the FA are just going through the motions with the Northern League, tick in the box, and that they will alloacte us higher but I guess we will soon know how worthwhile the FA "advice" was to 1883.

The fact we are becoming a community club and the way the 1883 group have handled things should impress the FA.

I hope too that this very honest and decent way of moving forward and the positive light it is shining on the game as whole will give other troubled clubs hope that there is a way forward which won't involve the full wrath of FA law.

Any relegation imposed as a punishment is a huge blow - and anything more than relegation by more than one division is just a kicking too far!

Eh - so you are saying this is the FA's fault for giving us advice on the CVA which said we couldn't have clauses attached? This forum beggars belief sometimes just hope 1883 didn't use this argument.

The FA advice wasn't to withdraw it was to sort it out and not have the clause - hardly their fault Raj wouldn't was it as a result we didn't submit as to do so would have not have been acceptable the same as not agreeing it

Absolutely fantastic post.

My hunch is that we'll be going into NPL1N. The FA are a bit skittish about 'big' clubs rocking up at Step 5/ Step 6 after the experiences of AFC Wimbledon and FCUM, who brought crowds that simply couldn't be handled at half the grounds in the league. We're not talking Dean Street standard, incidentally. It's worth going on the NL website to look at pictures of other grounds at that level: many of them are simply not set up for gates of over three or four hundred. While there are a lot of pernickety bureaucrats running the non-league game, there are also people around with a bit of basic common sense that will probably hear our case sympathetically.

While we're at it, I think - from reading the forum over the last month or so - there's been a fair bit of stirring from NL fans. I watch a fair bit of Step 4 football and, sad as is to say, that level does attract more than its fair share of cranks. There's a significant number of people who watch lower-level non-league football that would once have filled up the rest of their spare time ringing late-night local radio phone-ins and now have the internet to troll on. There's a lot of mithering about 'fairness' and symmetry: these people can spill astonishing amounts of digital ink on subjects like ground grading (you get 5-page threads on Nonleaguezone about the relative merits of different clubs' toilets, for example). For some reason, there's a perverse fascination with big clubs dropping down into the sub-regional leagues; perhaps it's a vindictive thing, I don't know. Let's just say that secondteam is a textbook example of a non-league troll.

Bottom line is that, even if we do go into the NL, we'll come straight back up. I might be wrong, but I think that the NPL are fishing for north east clubs at the moment and are about to do one of their amnesties where they'll take an applicant from the Northern League so long as they get a top-eight finish and aren't below two other clubs who want to take promotion. Just the name would be enough to draw a fair few of the better NL players to us, and I'd be extremely surprised if it was anything more than a one-year sojourn. I understand the disappointment that this would cause given the efforts put into fundraising and survival, but it's ultimately just a case of having a season to regroup at a level we shouldn't face any real challenge at. (Tin hat time for me once the NL lot read this...)

Oh you've only gone and done it now! (great post btw)

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Nice one broadsexile!

Don't know whether you are destined to join the Northern League or not, but why on earth wasn't your club's business kept confidential ?

Wow .... Broadsexile ... that is a first class post my friend. So rare on here these days!!

If NL supporters (or anyone else) has a problem with your words, they are clearly in denial. Well done!

I just hate it when someone copies down what I said then starts with "so you are saying..."

What I said is what I said - the rest is what you said. Tricky the old English language I know.

For the record however I don't blame the FA. I imagine that the dialogue between the FA and 1883 was slightly longer than

1883 "What about this CVA?"

FA "No good. Go away and agree a different one"

Further questions from 1883 like "What if we can't?" spring to mind.

Don't you just hate it when someone makes a statement with an obvious undertone yet then deny that this is how they intended it to be interpreted

I am still hopeful that the FA may give us a start above Northern League. After all they have given 1883 "advice" all the way through Administration

tricky language English isn't it?