Darlington Arena

Ground: Darlington Arena

Visits: 1

Date: 10th August 2009

Match: Darlington - Leeds 0-1 (League Cup)

Attendance: 4 487

I travelled to Newcastle, from London Kings Cross, on Monday morning and arrived, after some delays, in Newcastle by 13.20. After visiting a nice Italian restaurant I headed back to my hotel to get some rest before going to Darlington. Darlington is only 25 minutes by train from Newcastle and being on the East Main line there are plenty of trains connecting the two cities. After arriving at Darlington train station I decided to walk to Darlington Arena, that took me about 25 minutes. There were plenty of Leeds fans around the ground and inside the Carling pub. Darlington moved to their new ground in 2003, leaving Feethams after 120 years. The new stadium was initially called Reynolds Arena, after the then owner George Reynolds. However, following Reynolds' bankruptcy and arrest on charges of money laundering, the name was changed to The New Stadium in April 2004. Since then the stadium has had several names but is now officially called The Northern Echo Darlington Arena. The capacity is 25,500 but the average attendance in recent years have been around 3,000. A cup game against Leeds is a big match though and for tonight´s Carling Cup 1st round game 4 487 turned up, slightly less than I expected.

The 2,500 Leeds fans in the East Stand gave their team an excellent vocal support throughout the game. Even if Leeds did win this Carling Cup game by the only goal it seemed they just did enough to win. Darlington only had one real chance but a poor final pass put an end to their dream of a goal. Leeds went through to the next round but in my opinion the Leeds fans were better than their team this evening. Songs like Sit down if you hate Man U and Shoes up if you hate Man U (every Leeds fan raised a shoe) made some of the home fans laugh, not me though..

darlington arena