Postcard from ... Darlington

What is in a name? Quite a lot if you support Darlington (Kaveh Solhekol writes). The Coca-Cola League Two club played at Feethams for 120 years until they moved to a new stadium in 2003, which is when the problems started.

The new ground was bankrolled by George Reynolds, a former safecracker who was the chairman at the time, so it was christened The Reynolds Arena. After Reynolds’s arrest for money-laundering, the name was changed to The New Stadium. Then the club sold the naming rights, so it became The Williamson Motors Stadium before being renamed The 96.6 TFM Darlington Arena. This season the stadium has become The Balfour Webnet Darlington Arena and so far, so good.

Dave Penney’s team are top of the table, playing high-tempo, attacking football and on course to leave the basement division for the first time in 16 years. “We’re doing well because we have good players,” Penney said. “Since I got the job last year we have let about 20 players go and brought in about 15. The new players are a lot better and we are reaping the rewards.”

Penney proved his credentials by transforming the fortunes of Doncaster Rovers and his no-nonsense approach seems to be working again. George Houghton, the millionaire chairman, has set his sights on establishing Darlington as a Championship club. Barry Simmonds was appointed the club’s managing director in July and the former Bolton Wanderers director of scouting’s long-term ambition is to see the team playing in front of a capacity home crowd of 25,000.

“We always try to win, rather than not be beaten,” Simmonds said. “We have got a ground that is almost Premiership standard and we are aiming to get to the Championship. We’re not shouting about it from the rooftops, but that is our goal. We’ve had 124 years of promise at this club but not much delivery. The energy here is very tangible and we need to keep that going.”