I'm a bit of a sentimentalist like yourself when it comes to football clubs, Funky. Two of my saddest moments were when Third Lanark (Britain's last regimental club) went broke, and when Accrington Stanley ( a founder member of the Football League) went down the pan. But I don't think you can punish the directors directly without violating company law. Directors of Ltd. companies have been held only to a limited liability since around 1848. (Prompted by the George Hudson affair at Whitby I think). I don't think the FA could legally do it.
Someone mentioned Darlo, what happened to that stadium? That was progress actually killing a club, too big and the running costs ****ed them, was that right? FFP should be docked points and not fines, if a club was to close for overspending, despite an owner having hundreds of millions, indeed, they have the richest board outside Man City overall I believe, it would be a ****ing scandal. That said, Man City, PSG, Parma, Malaga, FFP IS being enforced for all. They aren't being treat any different, it's the foundations of it all that are wrong.
George Reynolds ****ed Darlington big style. There was little progress and he built that stadium as a tax dodge and then got done and locked up so it screwed the club! ****er!
Just reading up on it mate, a local rugby club bought it and is playing there, haha. If he'd built it 10,000 capacity you know, rather than being a flash ****er, they might be in the Championship now, was always a canny little club Darlo, my great uncle lived right next to Feethams and I went a few times when I was a kid, was always quite lairy in there.
From wiki re George Reynolds: He was convicted for stealing cigarettes, although that sounds like it was to feed his family so no problems there. Six months for smuggling watches. 4 years for safe-cracking, handling explosives, burglary and theft. Jailed in 1970 again for burglary Jailed again in 1976 for theft. He fed his family cigarettes
Ha, just reading further and the phoenix club has gone up again this year, 2 off the Conference now, I'd imagine they get back to the league withing 10 years, but they are playing at Bishop in a tidy enough but tiny and not suitable for the league stadium. How do they progress from there now? It would be awful to lose your club man, for that alone we can be thankful for the tight but incredibly wealthy Ellis.
Glascow Rangers, Leeds, Portsmouth etc. Yes we have to get the money right or a big chasm swallows your beloved team. BUT to compete in the Premier League we need much better squad than the one we have, at least 5 new players, say a couple of strikers, CBs a creative midfielder, all with pace, strength and skill. IF we do not get this we will struggle (supposing we stay up) next season like this one. We keep changing managers but it is the squad that needs changing Short has to pump more money in and find a way around FFP. We need to sell/offload Graham, Fletcher to name but two plus Buckley, Bridcutt there are quite a few that can be cut loose and free up the wage bill, I reckon Giac has not cut it, Alaverez for me the jury is still out on him. Short has to find a way around the capital spend and ratio of wages to turnover, Chitty do it why can we not also. Rugby in England is supposed to have a wage cap, however it is honoured more in the breech than observance..we have to get a better squad if we manage to crawl over the line and stay up.
Yeah Mowden Rugby club have it now. Strangely they're aloud to put what ever event on they like. This was the plan of Darlington FC to afford the ground but the council knocked back every application other than Elton John. These days they have all sorts on. There's a monster truck stunt show there this month. It's strange how the council blocked any attempts from the football club to put on events yet accept any application now the Rugby club have it. Anyway, As you've probably read Darlo FC is no more. Historic club gone because of a ****er. Relaunched and re branded as Darlington 1883 they finished runner up again in Northern Premier League Division One North and are in the play offs, they've been playing at bishop auckland but I believe and agreement has been made to ground share with Darlington Rugby Club(the towns second rugby union team) the ground is going to be redeveloped to seat more fans so hopefully they'll be back in the town soon. @Darlo_Geordie is the person to ask. He's a Darlo fan not a Newcastle fans, you may have seen him about. I'm sure he'll correct me if I've gone wrong anywhere.
He was sent down for tax as well I'm sure. After the club was taken of him and he declared bust he was pulled over by the police and they found millions in undeclared cash in his boot or something.
Well we didn't really go bust but FA treated us like a club who had, we came out of adminstration without a CVA as Raj Singh the chairman,who said he would walk away from the club with nothing if someone came forward decided that we owed him £2 million once the fans who had taken over so we tried to come to some agreement with him so we could get the licence for the clubs name but he wouldn't agree anything. We agreed with the former players who were owed money and that has now been paid back to them and also some companies who hadnt been paid but the reason we couldn't get the name of the club is that Raj Singh had the golden share and wouldnt give it to us as promised for nothing. So we had to apply for a new licence and the FA wanted us to have a new name which was voted on and was decided at Darlington 1883 we wanted AFC Darlington but the FA didnt wanted anymore teams with AFC at the beginning. We paid for the badge the name on the badge and the offical nickname Quakers but because Raj Singh wouldnt part with his golden share we werent allowed the name, we applied last season to rename ourselves Darlington FC again which the FA refused as debts was still outstanding on the previous name but hopefully we will be called just Darlington FC again and not Darlington 1883 pretty soon just like Newport were allowed their name back after so many years. Also we are moving home for next season to Blackwell Meadows which was for Rugby and is going to be a sports hub the fans of the football club have raised I think £335,000 in just over a month by buying 5 year season tickets there was 500 made available and we have reached that target and we now will get £150,000 of the sports grant which will be available to upgrade the ground to 2,500 and then once that is done we will be trying to upgrade over 3,000 for when we eventually get into the Blue Square North.
agreed...and I feel passionate about it like you Funk...but look at Woolworths, shipyards, coles cranes. Heritage counts for zip
A man has just bulldozed a section of Offa's Dyke this year ... and got away with it ! It's over 1,200 years old.
To tell you the truth mate in the early adminstration when Raj Singh put us in the ****ter the football community (fans and local clubs like Sunderland, Middlesbrough etc) all came together, its times like what us Darlo fans have that you appreciate there is still good in the game. Like at the beginning of this season Sunderland brought a full team to Bishop and waived any charges for the game might not be much to a Premier League team but to us in the non-league low on cash it was a magnificent gesture.
