Interested to see a thread about Darlington here as there was a good article about this club in last month's "When Saturday comes." I don't know if anyone else on this board reads this magazine but it always has very thought provoking articles within it and is a marked improvement on the kind of journalism. The article was written by a fan who rightly bemoaned Reynold's decision to take Darlington from their original, adequate ground and construct a new stadium to fulfil their Premiership ambitions which were never likely to be achieved. Quite a lot of remarks were made on both this and the Pompey board about criminals being in charge of PFC but in the case of Darlington this was wholly accurate.
Oddily enough, another article in this month's "WSC" described how St. Mirren had been re-organised into a compnay whereby the assets such as the ground, etc were ring-fenced should future owners prove unsuccessful in the management of the club and how this arrangement of coupling this with a "community club" kind of arrangement was seen by many north of the border as a sensible solution for some of Scotland's smaller clubs. Because of the way that football clubs are linked to the community, I feel that there should be assurances to ensure that clubs (especially ones with a strong regional attachment) are protected. When I looked at the Blue League table and saw how many old Football League clubs were languishing in this division, it highlights the plight of many clubs such as Mansfield (at one time potentially being re-named to match a fictional football team on a cable TV soap opera), the now defunct Chester City and perenial strugglers Stockport County. Surely a csse should be made for retuning to a more regional series of divisions like the old Div 3 South & North which would cut down travelling expenses and perhaps generate more interest in regional derbies?
Whilst football clubs have always gone out of business even before the days of Accrrington Stanley, Southport and Barrow in the 60's and 70's (quite a few "important" teams like Clapton Orient and Leeds City disappeared after the First World War nearly 90 years ago), some of the clubs now threatened have a heritage which stretches back nearly 140 years and I think that this is definatley justification for more regulated running of football clubs and perhaps a redistribution of revenue where some of the money can filter further down the l;eague.