Darlington United

Muttley said:
I thought that was sorted out for Elton John when he played there?

Moot point anyway as there just aren't enough interested people to fill it. As to how do Mowden Park afford it, simply they can't. Sooner or later there will be some big bills for maintenance and that will be that.
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I quickly checked, the ground only has planning permission for 10k - but they can ask for larger permission for one off events. Absolutely rediculous, really, to build a ground that you have to continually get permission for to use at its full capacity. George Reynolds really was one of a kind, wasn't he?

I don't know if that's right about Mowden Park though, they own the ground and they are monetizing it by using it for events and other functions. If they received £6 million for their old facilities then they should be fine for maintenance bills. Well, unless it really was extremely badly built in the first place. I get the feeling they probably make some decent money on it at the moment. Their facilities for meetings and events look pretty good and they will be making money from the concerts held there. I think they'll be fine.
 
Muttley said:
Darlo will never fill a 25k stadium not for any football team, not for any rugby team or indeed any other sport. The town is growing but is still under 100k population. That would mean that 1 in 4 of the total population from baby to granny would have to hove up at the Arena.
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Reynolds dream was as Darlo made it up the Pyramid to the promised land not only would he attract support from the surrounding area but also take support away from the 'big three'.

I think the highest gate they ever got was 14k for a save darlo fund raiser game
 
Muttley said:
I thought that was sorted out for Elton John when he played there?

Moot point anyway as there just aren't enough interested people to fill it. As to how do Mowden Park afford it, simply they can't. Sooner or later there will be some big bills for maintenance and that will be that.
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Why did Mowden Park move there in the first place then? It was clear from the off that it wasn't a sustainable venture.
 
Craggsy2 said:
Why did Mowden Park move there in the first place then? It was clear from the off that it wasn't a sustainable venture.
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Again, this is second possibly third hand. The original club site in the Mowden area of town was very valuable for residential development. So they took the money. At this point the George Reynolds Folly was empty, the football club having gone to the wall. The "plan" was to use the money to get promotion to the Rugby top league (the one Newcastle Falcons play in Premier?) and to do that they paid big money in salaries to some top players. Once there the riches of top league rugby would keep them going. Though even that was based on them attracting crowds from Teesside and Durham to watch rugby. They didn't quite make it. I believe even Newcastle struggle to fill their ground? Rugby just isn't that big up here. Anyhoo they now have a ground where at most 500 people turn up to watch the egg chasing and they try to keep it going with corporate events and the odd concert. I have no way of knowing what their finances are like but they have stopped paying top wages to the rugby team.
 
West Hartlepool made it to the promised land did the same as Mowden sold their ground (Brierton Lane) and then groundshared with the football club. It didn't last long
 
mbg42 said:
Details coming out now on Twitter

https://twitter.com/x/status/1689540886953107456
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:ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: Do you reckon its just people getting over excited cos they're involved with something a little juicy?? From reading this thread, they are on the verge of losing the club, stadium, players etc but the real power struggle seems to be over a twitter account!

Who actually owns the club?
 
Davey_C said:
Reynolds dream was as Darlo made it up the Pyramid to the promised land not only would he attract support from the surrounding area but also take support away from the 'big three'.

I think the highest gate they ever got was 14k for a save darlo fund raiser game
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Ironically I think if Darlo wasn't scarred from this experience over the past 20 years, with some of the things coming to the town now it'd be in a position to build the club a little more organically.
 
Needing a ground with a higher grading will have been the catalyst for this con trick.

Redcar Newmarket won the North Riding Premier League and Yorkshire Shield last season, but their current ground prevented them from being promoted.

Georgie Porgie's rusting white elephant indirectly strikes again.
 
I suppose I can understand this. They need a new ground but can't afford it, someone comes along with plausible sounding cash. He the suggests that he'll fund renting a bigger ground which will give publicity and allow them to move up without an up front cost of building a new stadium. Feels like prayers have been answered, even if it seems too good to be true they probably didn't want to believe that it was too good to be true.

There must be more to this story though. The guy involved seems to be a very blatant con artist. So I'm pretty sure he'll have taken money somewhere. Tbh I'm surprised that he didn't try to sell tickets to the first match and make off with that.
 
rbmfc1985 said:
I suppose I can understand this. They need a new ground but can't afford it, someone comes along with plausible sounding cash. He the suggests that he'll fund renting a bigger ground which will give publicity and allow them to move up without an up front cost of building a new stadium. Feels like prayers have been answered, even if it seems too good to be true they probably didn't want to believe that it was too good to be true.

There must be more to this story though. The guy involved seems to be a very blatant con artist. So I'm pretty sure he'll have taken money somewhere. Tbh I'm surprised that he didn't try to sell tickets to the first match and make off with that.
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He's possibly made off with sponsor cash. They were originally going to charge £10 entry (ridiculous at that level) but I'd seen someone mention you probably weren't allowed to charge for attendance at that level which would make sense as most teams play in parks or on school fields. Maybe that's where he gave up on the scam
 
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