The Darlington Arena
(known as the The Balfour Webnet Darlington Arena
for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in England that hosts Darlington Football Club's home fixtures.
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DARLINGTON ARENA TICKETS
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History
Prior to moving to the ground in 2003, Darlington had been playing at
Feethams, located near to the town centre. The current stadium is built on a greenfield site next to Darlington's
A66 bypass.
Upon completion the arena was originally called the
Reynolds Arena
, after the club's 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 club have sold the naming rights for the stadium to sponsors, firstly as the
Williamson Motors Stadium
and then the
96.6 TFM Darlington Arena
between November 2005 and September 2007. The ground took its current name in September 2007.
Already larger than some
Premiership stadiums, the ground has the theoretical potential to be expanded to a capacity of approximately 60,000 seats. However, as the club currently resides in the bottom tier, three divisions below the
Premiership (the highly ambitious aim of Reynolds when he commissioned the stadium), the likelihood of this ever coming to fruition seems highly doubtful.
A crowd of 11,600 watched the first game in the new stadium for a 2–0 defeat to
Kidderminster Harriers.
[1] Since then the ground has averaged a gate of around 3,000-4,000 supporters, although certain fixtures such as derby match against local rivals
Hartlepool United in March 2007 (10,121 spectators), have pulled in a significantly larger turnout.
The capacity of the stadium is currently capped at 10,000 for football matches due to poor access roads around the stadium, although the club are allowed to apply for an exception for certain occasions.
Other uses
Darlington plan to use the stadium for musical concerts to increase club revenue. The first set of concerts, called Pitch Invasion, were due to take place in June 2007 but were cancelled by the club just three months before.
[2] However,
Elton John was the first act to play at the stadium, on
5 July 2008.
[3]
References
- Darlington 0-2 Kidderminster
- Football club puts plans for pop concerts on hold
- Elton John in concert coup for Darlington