And finally...

....after a bit of a hiatus since the last post, I'm finally going to see Darlington in action when we visit Dunston UTS on Sat.

I had prepared the final reports of last season but hadn't got around to actually posting them - I may well do so in the next few weeks purely to plug the gap and finish things cleanly. Should satisfy my mild OCD.

And as for all the shenanigans during the season? Well I thought there was more than enough being written about our journey out of administration, the attitudes of our former chairman as well as the intransigence of the FA over our new status without adding any more needless comment.

My view was, and remains, the same - the club needs to be run by the fans and the fans need to step up and do their bit.  Those of us who are exiles cannot really do much of a practical nature but many of us have been happy to invest hard cash and allow the locals to put theory into practice.

And so far, everyone seems to have risen to the challenge and on all fronts we've made a promising start to life in the Northern League.

And what is very heartening is that the attendances are very solid and people do seem to be enjoying going back to grassroots - it does help that we're winning mind!

I had planned to attend some games by now but a mixture of home improvement works on the house and then some fixture rearrangements by the club have meant I've missed the opening eight league games.  I don't think that has happened since the late-eighties.

As an exile the rearrangement of some fixtures has been less than welcome given the 12-week advance window for buying cheap tickets on the East Coast mainline. 

Of course, some of these have been unavoidable due to other clubs being in various cup but some of the others could have been handled much better to help those travelling long distances.

The move to Wednesday for midweek games hasn't affected me at all other than have to rearrange the timing for Martin's rail tickets (and the additional cost).  A shame this change couldn't have been considered at the start of the season and built into the fixture list from day one.

And then we have the games moved to Friday where Heritage Park had already been booked up for weddings and the like.  It was annoying to hear about the first one but then to wait a few weeks before announcing the next one?

Apparently it can take the club a while to rearrange a fixture - I don't have an issue with that - but to keep the fixture in the calendar when the club knows full well the game won't go ahead? Less than useful.

As a result I'm keeping my attendance more limited that I normally would - it won't affect the club as they have my season ticket money - and I can find other enjoyable things to do on a Saturday that don't involve getting up early and making a round trip of about 500 miles (not to mention not having to carry my usual photographic load).

Other than the performances on the pitch, it will be interesting to see how things shape up as the interim board moves to a new elected board and how the CIC develops alongside the club.  Hopefully there will be plenty of locals looking to put themselves forward to help.

See you all at Dunston...