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WE'RE STILL STANDING: Darlington FC and the Pernicious Effect of the Premiership Dream

For the second time in their history Darlington have been relegated from the football league and, after 2 points from their first 12 games, there was a sense of inevitability about it. The club’s story over the past decade is a sorry reflection of the pernicious impact of the Premier League further down the footballing system and of the perils of poor regulation.

In George Reynolds, a multi-millionaire with prior convictions for safe-cracking and burglary, the Quakers arguably had the most unfit and improper chairman in English Football history for the first half of the decade. Unusual man-management aside (he published players' wages in the local paper as a means to motivate them through shame and supported his wife after she publicly accused the players of throwing matches) his unrealistic and untamed ambitions of becoming the biggest thing in the North East have ruined this small town club.

Ludicrous bids to sign Faustino Asprilla and Gazza followed with the Colombian even being paraded around the ground, along with a move to their new 25,000 capacity Darlington Arena. But by 2004 the club were in administration and Reynolds was gone, arrested on charges of money laundering (he was jailed for tax evasion in 2005 after being found with £½ million in the boot of his car).

The new stadium, more than anything else, is the irreparable millstone around their neck. Without a wealthy backer, it consumes money they cannot produce. It houses escalators that will never be used and, less than a decade into its existence, has the feel of a mausoleum. Local planning regulations have limited capacity to 10,000 but they average under 2,000 with the largest attendance being for Elton John. It is bland, expensive, out of town and painfully inappropriate, everything that is wrong with modern football stadia. Their old ground, Feethams, was within 5 minutes walk of the centre of town, compact if with a propensity to flooding. The change is deeply sad.

Darlington had a good side last year but a second administration in 5 years took them out of the play-off reckoning and destroyed their team spirit. Assets were stripped, Colin Todd and Dean Windass were brought in but left after 7 losses from 9. Steve Staunton only won 4 out of 23 games and with a whimper, league status was abdicated in April. This time last year, The Worm was celebrating Brentford’s promotion at Darlington. Locals were pessimistic but not, I think, expecting things to have gone this badly. One fears for the club and wonders quite how far down the pyramid the Darlington Arena can go, or rather, how far down it might drag them…

WE'RE STILL STANDING: The Football League's Brightest Managers Part 3

Championship

Mark Robins (Barnsley)

Robins is often credited with saving Alex Ferguson’s job when a young striker at Old Trafford, but while his playing career ultimately disappointed his managerial stock is climbing. Robins is a disciplinarian, a builder of team-spirit, and he has had an instant impact on both sides he has managed. Cutting his teeth in extremely trying circumstances at Rotherham, Robins' competence at Barnsley makes him perhaps the most eligible of all the candidates on this list.

Sean O’Driscoll (Doncaster)

A decade as a Bournemouth midfielder, six years as their manager and a season as club’s Poet Laureate, O’Driscoll is a club legend. He won a play-off victory in 2003 with a team of youngsters whom he developed into Championship-level players the cream of which (Brian Stock, James O'Connor and James Hayter) followed him to Doncaster. Another play-off success in his first season in South Yorkshire, surprising everyone with a Wembley victory over Leeds, has been followed by two years of consolidation in the Championship for a club currently well above their station.

Darren Ferguson (Preston)

The most high-profile of our ten, Ferguson was never more than a journeyman lower-league midfielder and his break in management came courtesy of his famous father. However, Ferguson Jnr has earned his own reputation after successive promotions during his 2 ½ year stint at Peterborough. His team was characterised by a number of outstanding young attacking talents picked up from the non-league. But his thrilling Posh side met their match in the Championship this year and he was chucked by the club’s chairman Darragh MacAnthony. Preston may be a better platform for Ferguson’s talents, and Dad might send some handy young loanees up the M61.

WE'RE STILL STANDING: The Football League's Brightest Managers Part 2

League 1

Andy Scott (Brentford)

In there on merit in spite of The Worm’s allegiance. Scott was a languid left-winger for the Bees and returned as Terry Butcher’s assistant at a time when the club seemed on a one-way road to the conference. With Butcher’s sacking he was given the managerial post on an interim basis and seized the opportunity to succeed, taking the club to the League 2 title in his first full season of management. A tactical and hard working boss, his scouting and knowledge of the players in the lower league is his biggest asset and has led to success in the transfer market. He also develops effective links with bigger clubs to afford the arrival of quality loanees but is no slave to sentiment and is quick to release those he views as surplus to requirements.

Paul Tisdale (Exeter)

Cravat-wearing Tisdale has styled himself as an intellectual and lover of the beautiful game. His teams have been accused of looking great but lacking the killer touch, but back-to-back promotions from the conference to league one in the past two years would seem to belie that judgement. Given the speed of their ascent, this season of consolidation can be seen a further achievement. No surprise he is seen as one of the more acerbic of football managers; before this appointment he gained four promotions in six years with Bath University’s Team Bath.

Kenny Jackett (Millwall)

Quietly going about his business at The New Den for 2½ years, Jackett hardly seems a perfect fit for the boorish Lions. He took over at Swansea in 2004 in League 2 and left 3 years later with the club firmly established in the top third of League 1. His Millwall team have hit form at the right time this year and are looking strong to overhaul Leeds in second, having won at Elland Road last week. There are no stars in his side but they are organised, physical and have Jackett’s own quiet self-belief. Having lost a thrilling play-off final to Scunthorpe last year, they are expected to go one better this time around.

Paul Lambert (Norwich)

A former Champions League winner, Lambert probably has the best credentials for a step up to the big league of anyone on this list. He started the season as Colchester manager in style with a 7-1 victory away at Norwich but within a month was Canaries boss. Now headed inexorably for the title, Lambert was able to exact some strange revenge with a 5-0 victory at Colchester in January. What would Simon Kuper make of that, I wonder? Lambert’s achievement at Norwich has been to convert a dishevelled and dispirited collection of players into the most combative and outgoing side in the league within the blink of an eye.

WE'RE STILL STANDING: Put Down the Spreadsheets and Watch the Game (The Football League's 10 Brightest Managers; Part 1)

Football is a business, they tell us; making the net bulge is less important than minimising net loss. So the story of Brian Laws' appointment at Burnley should have come as less of a surprise than it did. His unremarkable 3-year tenure at Sheffield Wednesday is widely viewed as a failure. Yet this is the first known case of a manager being appointed by Microsoft Excel, courtesy of the Championship’s best points:expenditure ratio in the financial years 2006-2009. This is a desecration of the romance of sport, and Burnley deserve relegation for it.

With the most recent Premiership vacancy being filled by Iain Dowie, a man who has been there before, The Worm wonders who would take a punt with an unproven lower-league manager at Premiership level. Is there a glass ceiling for British managers who were not international players? The clamour surrounding Alan Shearer's appointment at Newcastle was based on no footballing science at all. There was no evidence he would make a good manager but he wears the halo of having been a brilliant player, and that at a club who, in appointing Joe Kinnear earlier in the season, had shown either a sense of humour or very clouded judgement. Paul Ince was promoted to the top flight too soon because of his high profile, and his stint at Blackburn has blown a cautious wind. Of the current top-flight bosses, only David Moyes and Roberto Martinez come to mind as bold appointments from outside the Premier League. Are there others worthy of a punt? Starting in League 2, The Worm scours the lower leagues to identify 10 lesser-known British managers who are making a name for themselves.

WE'RE STILL STANDING: 36th time lucky for the league’s least eventful club?

The crucial Easter fixtures often shape a successful run-in, but this year each league seems to have one team already all but promoted. Newcastle and Norwich are well on their way in their respective divisions, but Rochdale in League 2 are the most interesting of the pace-setters for The Worm and other lower league buffs. For Dale have spent 36 years in the bottom tier of English football. Their desolate 89-year league history consists of one promotion (1969) and one relegation (1974) and they have never won a Championship. They are the archetypal Fourth Division club, synonymous with the basement of English football.

Manager Keith Hill was a centre-back with the club in the late 1990s and has been in charge at Spotland for 2 years, guiding the team to the play-offs in both seasons. Last year could have been better still were it not for a late fade, but their current position seems almost infallible; nine points clear of second place and twelve points ahead of the play-off places with eleven games to go. They are the best balanced team in the division; defensively solid, well run in the midfield and with a dynamic strike force in Chris Dagnell and Chris O’Grady who have 36 goals between them. Hill himself seems an honest and affable guy and is popular with his fellow managers. It will be hard to begrudge this Manchester club a belated moment in the sun. Now, you may ask me what Newcastle have ever won…