Today I'm going back 43 years to 1979 and York City's visit to Feethams to play Darlington in the old League Division 4. The game was a rearranged Tuesday night fixture and the programme cover shown above is, in fact, an insert produced to update the original match programme from the postponed game. Some clubs go to the expense of scrapping original issues for postponed matches and then producing a new edition when the game finally gets played whereas others, as in this case, produce an insert. I don't have a problem with making sure an original issue is used rather than being pulped but the use of inserts does present a minor dilemma when filing programmes in date order (as I do) i.e. do you go by the date shown on the cover of the original issue or by the date of the insert when the match was actually played? A first world problem if ever there was one.
York City fans perusing the list of appearances and goal scorers shown might be forgiven for thinking that this relates to York whereas it's actually Darlington's squad that is listed but it illustrates very well the fact that the two clubs have traded several players down the years. In this case, Derek Craig, Barry Lyons, Jimmy Seal, John Stone, Phil Taylor and Dennis Wann all appeared for both clubs.
My visit to Feethams was only my second ever York City away game and my fourth League ground visited. The Feethams football ground ceased use in 2003 and was demolished in 2006. I distinctly recall having to walk around the cricket pitch to gain access to the football ground for the featured game and the cricket part of the ground continues to exist today wheras the football ground was sold for housing. The tale of Darlington's move away from Feethams is quite remarkable. The club moved into the brand new 25,500 capacity Darlington Arena in 2003 when it was known as the Reynolds Arena, named after its Chairman at the time George Reynolds. Reynolds had ambitions to take Darlington into the Premier League (really) and the new stadium matched his grandiose ambitions albeit that the capacity was several times the usual gate for Darlington home matches. It was demonstrably too big for the club and, in the end, the upkeep and maintenance of such a large facility proved to be the undoing of the football club who went into administration on more than one occasion before being finally wound up altogether in 2012. A new club, Darlington 1883, was then started up by the supporters but had to begin at the foot of the English football pyramid and, today, plays three levels higher in the National League North. The new club does not play at the Arena (for obvious reasons) but the Arena continues to exist as a Rugby Union stadium owned by Darlington Mowden Park RFC whilst the football club now groundshares with another Rugby Union club: Darlington RFC!
George Reynolds, in addition to having rather poor judgement, also had a rather "colourful" past and one wonders how he could ever have been seen as an acceptable Chairman by the Football Association. Reynolds was involved in crime from an early age and was jailed several times for offences such as smuggling, theft, burglary and safe cracking (!) before he made his millions as a successful businessman manufacturing chipboard. His final brush with the law came in 2004 when he was convicted of tax evasion and this spelled the end of his Chairmanship of Darlington FC. Reynolds died aged 84 in 2021.
The featured match was a victorious one for York as they won by a single first half goal scored by Gordon Staniforth in front of an attendance of just 1,173. Charlie Wright's City selection that day included goalkeeper Joe Neenan, captain Roy Kay, a young Gary Ford, stalwart striker Kevin Randall, Ian McDonald and the aforementioned Staniforth. Staniforth was highly regarded by fans wherever he played including York, Carlisle United, Plymouth Argyle and Newport County and he made 463 League appearances scoring 101 goals in total. York finished the 1978/79 season in a respectable tenth position in Division 4 whilst Darlington were obliged to seek re-election following their 21st place finish (out of 24)
CRB Match No. 38
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