Arcticterntalk.org

The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world

Archive for the tag “darlington”

22 Oct 2017

Surely Jordan Pickford Must Be England Goalkeeper? Time to be decisive Mr Southgate

The first time I saw Jordan Pickford play it was maybe 5-6 years ago as a raw young keeper playing as an on loan keeper for Darlington away at Mansfield Town if I recall in a conference game. Darlington were starting their downwards spiral that has now ended and they are clawing their way back to the league. For example yesterday beating Bradford PA 2-1.

In that game I was sat with a handful of Darlington fans behind a goal in the cold night. Sadly for Darlington he was only a loan player and moved on

Now he is the Everton goalkeeper and watching the first half of their game against Arsenal he was the reason the score was 1-1 at half time making 8 superb saves.

England are bereft of good goalkeepers these days with few playing in the premiership . Joe Hart plies his trade for West Ham this season and is having a less than spectacular season. Errors abound. Most commentators and fans would agree he is far from the ideal England keeper. In fact for me his days are done .

Despite some delusional media comment and hype England will do well in Russia at the 2018 World Cup to reach the last eight.

With some friendlies on the horizon for the next 8 months it is time to play Pickford. Although not the final item he is on form the best England keeper.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged darlington, England goalkeeper, England squad Russia, everton, Everton goalkeeper, jordan pickford, World Cup 2018

01 Jun 2012

Darlington Football Club . All football fans should read this story

The story of what has happened to Darlington is so well written that I am not going to even paraphrase anything other than to say it makes sad reading and could apply to any football club. just click the link

http://www.darlofc.co.uk/news.php?NewsID=923

My own photos of Darlington are all on my website

http://www.footballgroundz.co.uk

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged bishop auckland, brentford, darlington, FA, football, football association, man utd, murder, shildon | Leave a comment

22 Feb 2012

Mansfield 5 Darlington 2

As was in the area on a work trip I decided to drop in and watch the game. Mansfield is always a friendly place to watch a game and usally half way decent football too. £16 to get in at the away end. Pastie and Mars Bar for tea. The game was frenetic. Darington looked like scoring whenever they went forward and conceding whenever the ball was in their box. The Mansfield striker Matt Green got a hat trick, a typical centre forward who has scored over 20 goals this season and one can see why. Turns out that the darlington team in the main are just youngsters and they did exceptionally well. Great goal from Macready. Keeper did well.

Photos below to give a flavour of the game. Not really up to usual standard as floodlights not strong and had to use ISO speed 6400 with only 1/250th speed. Anyway enjoy. Have a look at the penalty. Mansfield must have been super confident he would score as none of their players enter the box at all! In fact where are they?

My claim to fame is that I had breakfast in a small hotel near the Millenium Stadium with the grandparents of Marc Bridge-Wilkinson, when Brentford were playing Port Vale there. Of course he scored and always did against Brentford. in case anyone interested my footbal grounds website, which is going to have a a massive overhaul soon is at http://www.footballgroundz.co.uk

Good luck to Darlington. I shall buy some shares tomorrow.

The ground

What is he doing? Jordan Pickford

Goal for Mansfield

The closed down stand with maybe a hole in its roof??Penalty first photo

Penalty second photo

Penalty third photo

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged cold, conference, darlington, food, football, mansfield, mars bar, pastie | Leave a comment

16 Jan 2012

1 Comment

Darlington Football Club RIP

What has happened at Darlington is tragic. I have always followed Darlington by default as until recently they often sat in the same league as my team Brentford. They had a perfectly good small league 2 ground that held at least 10,000 is my estimate. They then were built a huge ground seating 25,000 just off the A66 sort of in the middle of nowehere, decent stadium for sure, but never needed. Now it seems they will go into liquidation and at best emerge a few leagues below, with or without their huge ground. Tragedy and travesty. The last time I was at Darlington it was a happy day, Brentford won 3-0 to win promotion to league 1 a few years ago. Football needs to look at its soul. So much money goes into the top end that folks forget the real end. even today there are plenty of premiership footballers, not all even in the first-team, whose single salary for 2011-12 season would be enough to save Darlington. although recent crowds have been maybe less than 2,000, the original fan base in their old stadium Feethams, was around 4-5,000. These people deserve a football team and one can only hope that a pheonix club arises from the ashes in the manner that Chester city are also doing. There is little more to say than this is a really sad day .

For anyone who is interested here are photos of Feethams, Feethams after being disused and the new stadium. If anyone would like copies of any of these photos then contact me at

beesbeesbees@blueyonder.co.uk

Or have a look on my football website www.footballgroundz.co.uk