Supporting Brentford, a team who have rattled around the bottom two divisions of the Football League for much of their history, my memory of significant moments can be found with teams deep in non-league football as well as the Premier League. Yeovil for example who join the FA Cup at the 4th Qualifying Round this weekend enjoyed one of their most important victories in defeating the Bees in the League 1 Play Off final of 2012. They were promoted to the Championship leaving us to reflect on another miserable Wembley day out. We’d pass them the following season as their stay in English football’s second division lasted just one season, and sadly for them the slide kept on going to the National League. Aldershot, Barnet, Boreham Wood and Havant and Waterlooville all bring matches to mind, many of which come from a time when Brentford were one of those league football big boys lying in wait in the FA Cup First Round Proper.
Brentford’s rise to becoming a team with genuine ambitions of promotion to the Premier League began with the League 2 title in 2009. Both the trophy and promotion were confirmed with a 3-1 win away at Darlington. This match report from Sky Sports, as well as being a reminder of how far the Bees have come, gives an insight into the problems which lay ahead for the home side. Attendance, 3,868. Not unusual in League 2 you might think, yet this was a team playing in a 25,000 seater stadium. In fact, the writing was already on the wall with the Northern Echo asking in February of that year, the simple question “where did it all go wrong?”
“The crux of the Quakers’ problems is simple,” wrote Scott Wilson. “Not enough supporters are coming through the gate.” The business model of Darlington appeared to be based on getting at least 5000 for home games, however a stadium which was difficult to get to and vastly oversized for the level of the club turned even the regulars away. Many of us will have been in virtually empty, all-seater grounds and the flat atmosphere is soul-destroying. You’ve got to have a special kind of loyalty to keep going back for more if that is the best your Saturday afternoon can offer. Opened in 2003, the Darlington Arena (and no football ground should be called an arena), was part of an ambition to push, ultimately, for the Premier League. Instead by 2009 the club was in administration for a second time since the move to the new ground, with a points deduction meaning they fell away from a chance of following Brentford into League 1. Plans for building projects around the stadium – a hotel, offices and sports training facilities – had hit the rocks due to the global financial crisis of the late 2000s. Darlington weren’t the only club in administration, so to were now Championship clubs Rotherham and Bournemouth, the latter’s recovery and rise from League 2 to the Premier League Darlington can only dream about. The Northern Echo article also reminds us that lower league football finances were often screwed long before Covid in 2020, and Project Big Picture became the talk of the mainstream media.
Darlington fell out of the Football League in 2010 and by 2012 were in administration yet again. A supporters group rescued the club but the FA ruled they should be demoted to the Northern League, a drop of four divisions. Their unhappy time at the arena was over and the club left the town altogether, reaching agreement to play at the home of Bishop Auckland. Three promotions in four seasons and the club returned to Darlington and Blackwell Meadows on Boxing Day 2016. This summer there was even talk of going one step further and playing back at the Arena as a way to enable socially distanced crowds to attend matches, but as has been written before, elite level non-league clubs, of which Darlington are one, are yet to play in front of spectators this season.
If I was a Darlington fan I expect I’d be sick of references to the few years of the Arena, so let’s focus too on positive stories from their history. They’ve made a name for themselves in the FA Cup on numerous occasions as the club website details:
“In November (1955) at St James Park, Newcastle, Darlington played Carlisle United in the first ever FA Cup match to be played under floodlights in a second round replay which Darlington won 3-1.” There was more cup positivity in 1958. “After beating Rochdale, Boston and Norwich, they came up against First Division Chelsea. Drawing 3-3 at Stamford Bridge, Quakers beat the Londoners 4-1 in the replay at Feethams in front of 15,150 fans. In the next round they were drawn away to Wolves, who included England captain Billy Wright, but lost 6-1.”
In 1999 FA Cup holders Manchester United withdrew from the following season’s competition to participate in the 2000 World Club Cup. They were encouraged by the FA as it was believed this would help England’s bid to host the 2006 World Cup, so that went well didn’t it. The move unsurprisingly provoked significant criticism from fans, pundits and the press. The FA promised it would never happen again, with Manchester United defending themselves by saying “People should not lose sight of the fact that the FA and the Government were very keen for us to go to Brazil.” This meant a space was vacant for the third round, with a draw held of all second round losing teams to fill the gap. Whilst Manchester United travelled to South America it was Darlington who took their place.
Glory Hunting 