‘Save Darlo’ Fans Day: A Wednesday fans journey

Let’s not make any bones about this, I’d always prefer to watch Wednesday whenever I can and I would have been doing just that on this Saturday too had we not sold out our entire Blackpool allocation in a couple of hours.
Once it was clear there were no more tickets coming our way then all that was left was to be a grumpy old chuffer sat at home listening to the radio.

As I read about Darlingtons plight on Twitter and followed the events of just over a week ago almost as keenly as I followed our own court proceedings a year ago I really started to feel the anguish of the Darlo fans and empathise with them. We’d been down this road, the uncertainty, the anguish…it’s not a great place to be.

I also I knew I wanted to do something, to get involved, to ‘do my bit’

Of course I donated what I could online but once it was announced that this could be the last game Darlington played unless they got a lifesaving injection of cash then I wanted to do more… I know they appreciated, and still do, all the donations they’ve had but I wanted it to be more personal, I needed them to know that they are not alone and that other fans do care.

Having ‘spoken’ to a few Darlo fans online and having been told that everyone would be welcome at the final game of the 3 game stay of execution there was no doubt in my mind how I was gonna spend my Wednesday free Saturday.

‘Come up, you’ll be welcome. Wear ya Wednesday shirt too…it’s a fans day’

It was most definitely something we could do, would do and SHOULD do…to show our support for their plight.

I’d arranged to meet Chris (Lincsowl) at the ground and with the Young Un Phoning me to say she wasn’t feeling well enough to come with us we had to jiggle around a bit and all ended up going in my car. When Liam arrived we picked up Jeff and Danny and we were off…

There was a good mood in the car and we were all chuffed to bits to be able to make one in for this but there were one or two voices with an edginess in them, concerned about wearing their Wednesday shirts in the home end…we’ll be right….I reassured them.

Seeing how I had control of the music all the way up there and without the influence of the Young Un I banged on a mixture of 70’s tunes… there’s little wonder really considering the average age in the car was around 40 but if you took me out of it, it dropped to 22…Bollox to em…my car, my music rules.

I took em through the delights of Alvin Stardust, David Soul, Hues Corporation, David Cassidy and the best of the lot, the Chi-Lites: Have ya Seen Her. I was singing along to it in my best falsetto voice… ’I see her face everywhere I go…on the street and even at the picture show have ya seen her…’ Pretty damned good I’ll have you know and there was no joining in on the backing of ‘baba bap baba bap, baba bap bap bap bap baaa…Have ya seen her’

I rewound it…

Listen you lot…until you get this right, we’re listening to nowt else…

Jeffrey was dreadful…it’s being from Holland that does that ya know, no sense of rhythm, their ‘baps’ and ‘babas’ all ower the place…

I rewound it…

Try harder Jeff…

’I see her face everywhere I go…on the street and even at the picture show have ya seen her…tell me have ya seen her?’

NO! I HEFFN’T SEEN HER! Pipes up Jeff…

I rewound it…

That attitude will get ya nowhere my lad, now sort yaself out…

5 times I rewound that song until those in the car met my high standards…and then it was only just…but I think all the youngsters learned a valuable lesson there….do it right first time!

Jeffs problem is that there’s been no great Dutch pop/rock bands so he has nothing to work with…

When we asked Jeff to tell us some famous Dutch bands…his list went…

Golden Earring…Vengaboys…Golden Earring…Focus…Golden Earring…and them guysh who sang ‘Venus’ He pipes up in his best Dutch/English accent…’she gad it…ooo baby she gad it’

Bananarama? They aren’t Dutch…

No no, ‘Shocking Blue’, they sang it originally…I don’t think they did matey…I’m sure it’s a 50’s song…

By the time he’d found more famous Dutch bands on his i-pad for we were at the ground…
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It’s quite an impressive ground as you approach it and it wouldn’t look out of place at a Championship club or even Premier League club but maybe a little over the top for a Conference side.

We parked up and walked over to meet Chris (@lincsowl) and his Darlington mate Glynn and his young son.

Before we got to the bar though we needed tickets and a ‘Save Darlo’ T-Shirt…‘Give us a big un flower’ I said to the woman selling the shirts. ‘Large or medium?’ ‘Is that the biggest?’ ‘It is but if I can get it in one you can too’ ‘My breasts are bigger than yours though’ I say ‘Hey. Don’t get me going, they aren’t bigger than these’ She was right. They were impressive to be fair.

Not that it matters like but you didn’t need to be Sherlock Homes to see that ‘large’ was gonna be a tad ‘snug’ around these curves.
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As we walk through the doors to the bar, it feels a bit like being in a Western saloon…ya can feel all eyes turn to you and suddenly it seems like the Wednesday home shirt might not be such a good idea. A young lad at a table makes an admiring comment about the shirt though, he likes it…A Leeds fan with his Leeds scarf round his neck stops to chat a moment and the young lad at the table gets a bit of divil in him trying to get us at each other…I liked him already and smiled at him calling him a chuffer for stirring it up.

We got a couple of cans in and settled in for a pre-match chat to Glynn about Darlington. I wanted to know how Darlington fans felt…I mean I spoke to Colchester fans before they moved from layer Road and although I loved the place most of them were adamant they wanted away and a new place…I signed their petition because that’s what they wanted.

If Darlington fans wanted to stay in this ground, if they felt a connection to it then who am I to tell em they need to move?

Glynn is a Darlo season ticket holder and he travels from Lincoln for every home game but he remembers the old ground in the town and he loved it there. He’d love nothing more than to get a new ground built back in the heart of Darlington and of a size that is more suitable to their crowds. He, along with others that I spoke to are under no delusions about this ground or their club and I can’t remember talking to one that actually thought they should stay at this ground or indeed wanted to stay.

As was the case all day, whenever we talked to someone, another Darlington fan wanted to chat or simply shake hands and as we spoke a couple of young lads interrupted. They’d been students at Sheffield up to a couple of years ago and gone to games at both Sheffield clubs…he even had tickets still in his pocket from when West Brom beat us 4-0…

I told him it might be time to get his coit cleaned…

They were smashing lads and backed up exactly what Glynn had been telling us about how their club had been poorly run over the years, the things holding them back at the moment and how everyone wants to move forward…part of that involves getting away from this ground. They even suggested that with a better sized ground built in the right place, back amongst the folk of Darlington, then they may even add to the crowd. Folk would get back to supporting the club even more.

We continued to chat and Darlington fans continued to come up and shake our hand…every one of us…they went round us all and made sure we knew how grateful they were that we’d made the effort the come and join em….when they went past us to the bar they patted us on the back…

Back to the chat…these fans aren’t daft.
They don’t have lofty ambitions, other than those that every footy fan has. We all have schoolboy dreams of winning titles and cups, of course we do, but above all that there’s more and what they want is simple.

Darlington Football Club to survive.

A place they can continue to visit to see THEIR club with their families, as generations have done, not just at this club but at every football club…

They realise that this ground has been a millstone around their neck… They told me of games when they’ve been to at this ground and there’s only been 450 inside and how dreadful it was. Sitting in this ground is bad enough with a bumper crowd like there’ll be today and seeing the ground over half empty but to be in there with that sort of crowd was heart breaking.

Their memories of walking to the old ground were no different to every other footy fans memories, like Wednesday fans walking to Hillsborough, they want their kids to experience all that…they don’t get that same feeling when they come to this ground.

A huge bloke walked in…he had one of them well lived in faces, like an old sofa and a wonderfully deep North East accent you could listen to forever…

Soon as he saw us he started ‘GREAT EFFORT! GREAT EFFORT! Have you lads come up for this? All that way?’

Yes mate.

He wrapped his massive hand around my girly little hand and shook vigorously…

‘GREAT EFFORT, INCREDIBLE’ he boomed again…with more than a hint of emotion in his voice…

When we walked round to turnstiles and through to the bar area under the stand the same bloke was shaking the hand of someone wearing a Wolves shirt and saying the same thing…’INCREDIBLE, thank you’

As the players came out onto the pitch the York City fans held up cards saying ‘FOOTBALL UNITED’ and ‘F**K MODERN FOOTBALL’ It was an incredible gesture from Darlingtons Conference rivals.

Kudos to them, fabulous stuff and in keeping with the tone of the day..
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THE MATCH
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The Darlington players did the club and the fans proud today…it was a mish-mash of players that the club had managed to gather together to fulfil this fixture…mainly kids of very little experience with a few old heads thrown in to try and keep em together.

The lack of experience all over the pitch did show at times and the young lad in nets for Darlo, at times wonderful, quickly reverted to the rashness of youth and made errors, but at no time did he stop giving his all and the same could be said of them all.

They were up against a very good York side who were well organised and stuck to the game plan…they looked fitter and sharper in pretty much every position on the pitch and you really wouldn’t be surprised to see this team playing at a higher level next season but for all that difference in ability Darlo didn’t give in and they made up for their shortcomings in determination and the will to run and never stop…

It was clear they wanted to do this for the fans and the Darlington fans urged them on at every turn, it was a great atmosphere. There was a feeling of togetherness all around the ground and the young players didn’t want to be the ones to let everyone down…they didn’t.

Their commitment was rewarded when Darlington managed to get their noses in front just before half time and give everyone the chance to dream of a fairytale result and build up their hopes through the half time break.
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Again as we stood there during the break Darlo fans came down and shook our hands, thanked us and stayed for a natter…they were great company and it was good stuff but I could take it no longer…I really needed to get to the toilet…my bladder was about to explode.

As I stepped through the door I was greeted by an icy blast…

SWEET BABY JESUS!

David Attenborough should have included this place in his Frozen Planet programme…chuff my old boots this was cold. A bloody polar bear couldn’t sleep in this. I’m sure I heard a bloke going MUSH!MUSH! As he led a team of huskies through… There were blokes in the opposite urinal shivering like chuff…

I DAREN’T let go of me todger…it was the warmest thing in there…
Above us there were three big air conditioners blowing out cold air like Billy O…a lad finishes off and shouts ‘I’m off outside for a warm’

THIS IS WITHOUT DOUBT THE COLDEST PLACE ON EARTH!
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In a ‘normal’ league game this team of Darlo players may well have lost this game quite heavily but today wasn’t gonna be one of those days, today was different, it was special.

When the young lad McReady scored the second goal to put the home team 2 nil up the place erupted…

It was a lovely bit of individual skill and right I front of the home fans where we were… We celebrated as though we’d been Darlo fans all out lives and I grabbed Glynns son and threw him up in the air… We were celebrating along with the rest of em in there and below the players were piling on big style and somewhere under the huge pile of bodies was the young lad McCready…excellent stuff…

It wasn’t long after Darlo went 2 goals up that I started getting a load of texts…at first they just said ‘1-0 to us Clinton scorer’

We had a little mini cheer and celebration amongst the Darlo fans…it must have looked quite strange really!

Then they started…about a dozen more texts telling me that Clinton had scored and how ‘he was looking for me’…that it was ‘the perfect moment’…’his greatest moment in a Wednesday shirt and I’d missed it’ and I’ll never be forgiven…BASSADS! Rotten bassads!
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The match in front of us didn’t turn into that fairytale victory everyone hoped for because York got back into the game with two quickfire goals…and to be fair, it was the least they deserved…they continued to play well and it really was just a matter of time before they were rewarded.

The crowd tried to rally the Darlington team and the noise really was excellent at times…mindst you, the York fans were giving it plenty as well and it all helped create a really good atmosphere as the game came to an end and both sides had chances to take the three points but maybe it would have been a bit too harsh for one of them to win this game.
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When the final whistle went every single person in the ground stood to applaud and give the teams a great ovation. The players came over and applauded the fans and they were saluted non-stop until they left the pitch…

No one wanted to leave really, if you left it meant it could really be over, that this was your last moment…

Everyone was shuffling out for what could be the last time, not just in this ground but for their club…the home fans joined in with the song being played on the Tanoy ‘You’ll never walk alone’ it was quite moving…it started off slow, almost subconscious, it had a low almost prayer like tone to it but it built up well before disappearing into the stands and when that died away once more the fans sang out loud and proud…

DARLO WILL NEVER DIE!
DARLO WILL NEVER DIE!

And we couldn’t help but join in…and you actually believed it too…

As we headed for the steps the Darlo fans that had been behind us in the main crowd, who’d done all the singing, all stopped at once to let us out…

And every single one of them applauded us…

Blimey! What a cracking moment that was and made even more special when they started chanting

WEDNESDAAY!!
WEDNESDAAY!!
WEDNESDAAY!!

Jesus…My heart was in my mouth and I went a bit quiet, I was really taken aback by it and I was getting quite emotional…it really was an incredible feeling…the fur was definitely up and it was staying up.

We’d done so little…just a show of unity and here they were thanking us like this…we applauded them back and wished them well.
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As we sat in the car waiting for the car park to clear there was time for one more Darlo fan to come over…

I could see him saying something but couldn’t hear so I opened the door..

Like so many today he asked ‘Have you come up from Yorkshire?’

Yes mate…once more he thanked us so animatedly, so full and without reservation and then said…

‘You won at Blackpool didn’t you?’

No…we’ve just heard that Phillips has scored a penalty in injury time!

OUCH!

I HATE PHILLIPS I DO!
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It seemed to take ages for the car park to clear so we drove over a path and out another way…and promptly took the wrong turn..

Did we come this way?

NO! Was the shout from every fooker in the car…

OK OK…I knew that…I spun it round and we headed off back…

It had been a cracking day. We’d met some fantastic folk who had made us feel so welcome and we nattered openly about our clubs and football in general. It turns out we’re all pretty much the same, that we all want the same thing from football… Who’d have thought it eh?

I genuinely hope that the Darlington fans get what they want, what they really deserve and that their club continues and they get the good feeling back…that they can continue to take their kids to watch their club for many years to come….that’s what we all want at the end of the day isn’t it?

Thanks for your warm hospitality, all the best

Steve:Beastie
Owls Alive
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