Thursday, January 19, 2012
It’s all go at the moment!
My little soccer team Darlington F.C. (The Mighty Darlo) DID actually go bust yesterday and I was about to head down to the Hangar Bar and turn my Darlington scarf upside down, but the fans gathered round the body and resuscitated it…
Darlington go bust and then revived after fans raise £200,000
The club have NO staff (not even players) - they were all made redundant by the Administrator but the backroom staff are all volunteering to help stage the two next home games, the coach is working for free, and what players are still around are going to play on a match-by-match basis. The fans are collecting money to pay their wages while our “Rescue Group” tries to thrash out some sort of community-led business plan. The coach, Crag Liddle, deserves an OBE or something - he’s really the Youth Team coach who’s been looking after the first team for the past few weeks, he’s Darlington through-and-through and a monument to all that is good and decent about the game. I think he’s been the glue which has kept us all together - even the players who had to leave (they had to earn a living) were gutted at abandoning ship and many ex-players have sent messages of support or even donated to the fund.
The first is at home to table-topping Fleetwood on Saturday and we’ve got fans coming from all over the country for a Fans United day where they wear their own club colours. The second home game is against nearby rivals York City - so we’re expecting a bumper crowd for that game too.
I’m also one of the admins for this page…
http://www.facebook.com/savedarlingtonfc
I’d really appreciate it if anyone reading this could “Like” that page and help spread the word. We’ve got about 10 days grace to save the club from extinction - Georgi’s quite upset about it - following Darlington is something which helps to fill his world up and if there’s no match for us to sit down and listen to on a Saturday then he’s going to make me get the colouring books out, or build the same Lego car I’ve built ten times before, or get all his toy cars out…. again…
P.S. if you would be so kind could you please print out the poster at the bottom of that first link (or just click here) and stick it somewhere prominent.
Up the Darlo!
Paul
Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - 13:36:31
great website.
Monday, February 27, 2012 - 02:41:44
Congrats on this… i liked it!
Monday, March 19, 2012 - 16:59:55
Blaming the Ped Heart is just crap. Darlo buses have been utterly llreniabue for yonks - I tried using their timetables well before all these nice shiny timetables were posted around the town - forget it. Yes, could well be traffic congestion, but don’t forget staff reductions, clapped out buses and profit maximization. Introducing “real time” bus info at bus stops is a great idea, but the bus companies need to run their buses on time first for it to be of any use.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 01:46:58
great website
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - 05:08:12
Excellent addition, Mike. Simple, obuiovs, and immediately useable. I hope you’ve invoiced Local Motion for the consultancy fee. Could anyone from the Local Motion team let us know the original fee for this work?