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The World Famous City Ground - Home of the PROPER WORLD‘S OLDEST LEAGUE CLUB

Future of the WFCG? What‘s your preference?

  • Current site - just replace the BC and PT stands

    Votes: 112 65.1%

  • Current site, demolish the existing stadium and build a new one (with ground share during works)

    Votes: 49 28.5%

  • New Stadium further down the River Trent

    Votes: 13 7.6%

  • New Stadium out-of-town

    Votes: 2 1.2%

  • New Stadium in the city centre (Eastside option)

    Votes: 19 11.0%

  • Do nothing and stay as it is with 30k max capacity

    Votes: 8 4.7%

  • Other (I will tell you in the comments)

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • Total voters
    172
Y

YellowBelly Red

Viv Anderson
MagicalQuakers said:
We had a nice little (ageing) ground in a nice town centre location (next to a river).

We developed one new stand that held almost 4k, overall ground capacity was limited to around 7k (although had held 10k+ previously). The other 3 sides were old and needed developing.

When successful we got crowds of around 5k at best, with some big games selling out.

The land the ground was on was owned by the cricket club, but was ours for as long as we wanted it - sporting covenant type thing with very low rent.

Building the new stand put us into a bad financial position, ITV Ditigal collapse, poor ownership, usual lower league stuff. Reynolds came in and did save us financially and backed the team, which boosted attendance. He always was a clown, trying to sign Gascoigne and Asprilla (I was there the game he was paraded around the pitch - madness).

All that was needed was a modest rebuild to get Feethams to 10k. But he then decided to build a massive out of town stadium to "get us to the Premier League". If he had build something that could be expanded in the future then fair enough, but 27000 capacity.

Suffice to say it bankrupted us and him in the process. That shows how mad he was, spending all his money on a vanity project that lost him his house.

The ground got sold out from under us (or taken off subsequent dodgy owners). The costs to run it were far too high for us, and any extra income was no where near enough and as tenants I am not sure we saw any of it anyway.

Worse than that the atmosphere was atrocious, less than 10% full was embarrassing and didn't help us at all.

We finally went truly bust and have started back at the very bottom, but have paid off all of debts we had.

We now ground share with a different rugby club and talk often turns to shouldn't we move back there and share with Darlington Mowden rugby club.

For me personally it is just is totally soulless and doesn't represent who or what Darlington Football Club are. It also represents the worst times as a supporter. We would never ever prosper there. Oh for a time machine!
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Keep the faith. We need grassroots football still, despite the gloomy outlook on the football pyramid.

Always liked calling off at Darlo for north-east games. Seem to remember a dirt cheap pub outside the station, which football fans frequented. Seem to remember one Saturday when we were at Newcastle, and Chelsea were at Boro.....and we all had the same idea to drink in Darlo!
 
M

MaxiRobriguez

Bob McKinlay
If you overlaid Darlington on a map of Nottingham then the Darlington Arena would almost be directly on top of the proposed Gamston site, and both right next to the vet similar dual carriageway T junctions.

So on that basis I think we should move to Gamston.
 
Bob Fossil

Bob Fossil

Nottingham's dirty secret
Owd Rishi is at the WFCG today. We're really trying to make as many enemies as possible aren't we 🤣
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T

tomw94

Geoff Thomas
I'm by no means a fan but the meltdown some people are having on twitter over the prime minister visiting is a bit ridiculous. I'd understand if we were entertaining Nigel Farage but come on...
I also do not get the stance that I see a lot of people saying "Nottingham Forest is a socialist club" simply because of Brian Cloughs views. Mixing politics with football is bollocks really, football is it's own entity, an escape from the rest of the world, so please do not try and tell me what my football club is in relation to something that has nothing to do with the sport.

Hopefully Rishi is doing something useful for once though, and announcing something positive on the topic of grass roots football in the local area or similar.
 
Otis Redding

Otis Redding

Try A Little Tenderness
There were a few Tories on the old committee who were compromised by Cloughie's very public support for Labour. His decision to lead a march in support of striking Notts miners on Ken Clarke's house in West Bridgford on the morning of a home game didn't go down too well in the boardroom at the CG - not that Cloughie would have given a flying one about what Messrs Rowarth, Reacher and co thought about it.

There's no doubt that Brian would have fully approved of Nigel Doughty's later financial support for Labour.
 
valspoodle

valspoodle

Steve Chettle
MagicalQuakers said:
The 'new' ground, whilst bankrupting Darlo and George Reynolds was done on the cheap, so it looks terrible and needs all the steel work treating/painting. Mowden sold their ground (on the other side of town) off for housing and bought this one off the people who it had defaulted too.

It was a ridiculous sight to see less than 2k in a 27k stadium! I shall never set foot in that place ever again!

Feethams was supposed to have a covenant on it, but the Council happily let the cricket club (which is still there) sell it off for housing. The new main stand there was only a few years old and was more than sufficient for our normal crowd levels.

Sadly Darlo still need to find a new permanent home if they are ever to get back into the Football League. The current ground share cannot easily be upgraded to meet ground grading requirements.
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Greetings. My second club are King's Lynn and this last couple of seasons have been vying with Darlington in the lower reaches of National North. Every morning here in rural Suffolk I pass a well-travelled motor home (judging by the condition) bearing the legend Quakers on Tour and the number plate ends "DFC" (can't remember the rest). I resist the temptation to knock on their front door, but keen fans they must be.

All good luck to you and your club.
 
sammy the snake

sammy the snake

Jack Armstrong
tomw94 said:
I'm by no means a fan but the meltdown some people are having on twitter over the prime minister visiting is a bit ridiculous. I'd understand if we were entertaining Nigel Farage but come on...
I also do not get the stance that I see a lot of people saying "Nottingham Forest is a socialist club" simply because of Brian Cloughs views. Mixing politics with football is bollocks really, football is it's own entity, an escape from the rest of the world, so please do not try and tell me what my football club is in relation to something that has nothing to do with the sport.

Hopefully Rishi is doing something useful for once though, and announcing something positive on the topic of grass roots football in the local area or similar.
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Millennial bug mate. Nothing more 😂
 
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