charlotte

By The Compass

• ↑ Most northerly ground: Woodhorn Lane home to Ashington, Ashington Reserves
• → Most easterly ground: Blundell Park home to Grimsby Town
• ↓ Most southerly ground: Home Park home to Plymouth Argyle
• ← Most westerly ground: Home Park home to Plymouth Argyle

About charlotte

First Game

Darlington v Rushden & Diamonds in November time in 2005/06 season. We drew 1-1 and I just remember Dave (Guylain Ndumbu-Nsungu) scoring a last minute equaliser for us. The first Darlington player I ever saw score a goal haha! I was 8 years old at this time and I still remember just seeing so many empty seats in this arena, the crowd was probably around 3000+ at this time, which would have left 22,000 empty seats! It was ridiculous! Then in the 2006/07 season I got my first ever season ticket!

Best Game

For Darlington it's a hard decision, my top ones are:
- Darlington v Gateshead FA Trophy semi final games, we were 0-2 down at home in the first leg but went on to win 3-2 and then in the second leg the result was 0-0, poor game but the atmosphere amongst 2000+ Darlo fans in the away end was incredible.

- Darlington v Mansfield Town in the FA Trophy final also. 0-0 at full time so it went into extra time, and in the very last minute of extra time Chris Senior scored to win us that trophy. A 1-0 win at Wembley with the goal being in the last minute of extra time, could it get any better?

- Bishop Auckland v Darlington - our club had just been saved in the summer, demoted 4 leagues but the start of the journey back was amongst us and the atmosphere in a new ground, the thought of leaving that unneeded 25,000 seater arena, finally being fan owned, it was incredible. And we kicked off the season with a fantastic 3-1 win!

- Spennymoor v Darlington - We were on for a two horse race in the Northern League, we\'d both taken a point off each other at the previous fixture and this was a massive 3 points needed for both clubs. The attendance was around 2,670 with 1,500 Darlo fans cramped in the away end. The first and only game of the season in that league to have segregations. We went 1-0 down and were getting outplayed but then we completely turned the game around just before half time, upped our performance and Tez Galbraith equalized for us to put it at 1-1, our fans went absolutely crazy. Then in the second half, a beautiful pass from Tommo to Stevie Johnson who then crossed it into David Dowson who put it in the net to put us 1-2 up, gosh all I remember was being stood at the top of the steps then after the goal celebrations calmed down I was right at the bottom in so much pain. Tommo then made an excellent run down the wing and crossed it in, then it got flicked on to Nicholls who put us 1-3 up and again celebrations went unbelievably wild and people were falling everywhere, so many shirts came off, voices were raised, it was unbelievable. Great win and I actually went to the doctors a couple of days after I was in that much pain and they told me I pulled my calf muscle, hahaha.

- Darlington 3-1 Team Northumbria, we did it. We got promoted with another game yet to spare. The atmosphere was crazy. The celebrations were crazy. The emotion was crazy. It was just one of the best days. We won the league with 122 points, 13 points clear of 2nd place Spennymoor. And a goal difference of 110. It will never get as good as that! Won 40, drew 2, lost 4, scored 145 goals and conceded 35 goals.

For neutral games:
- Newcastle v Benfica was brilliant. The atmosphere was crazy from both sets of fans and I met some Benfica fans who were brilliant and hilarious. I\'ve been to many Newcastle games but none quite like that one.

Worst Game

That's a very hard question, following Darlington has already been so very hard. 3 administrations, 2 relegations and 1 demotion says enough! Although I have seen a Wembley win for the FA Trophy and a promotion from the Northern League division 1! But the worst games were probably in the 2011/12 season. Lincoln 5-0 Darlington was awful. Quite a few of us travelled to Sincil Bank to watch such a dire performance and the realisation that relegation was almost amongst us hit a lot of us really hard.

Too many that I like a lot to choose my favourite.

We arrived on the supporters coach and as someone said 'It literally looks like we're going to be stood in a horse stable' - nice little club but their ground was very poor.

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