Here are DJ's programme notes from Saturday's game

It’s been a busy summer for everyone involved behind the scenes on various fronts. There is so much to do in order to prepare for a new season with several people keeping in touch with the club whilst they were away on holiday from different parts of the world and helping with various tasks.  Hopefully, all the hard work will be worth it this afternoon. That’s not to say the workload will ease now as there is still plenty for us to concentrate on.

We have supported Alun as much as possible to bring in new players, and I believe that he has succeeded in signing several players of good quality. I’m looking forward to seeing them all play, in particular young Kenzie Harker, who has come through from our Academy. Hopefully he will be the first of many to come through.

Once again, I was amazed by our fans pledging £166,000 to our Boost the Budget campaign in May., which means that since we became a fan-owned club in 2012, our supporters have raised around £2 million for infrastructure and team building. That is a phenomenal achievement and is the envy of many clubs. Once again, you have demonstrated how much the club means to you, after you passed the £150,000 target with a bit to spare.

On the commercial side, we have new main sponsors in Nuleaf, and you will see their name on the front of the players’ shirts today. We are very grateful to Nuleaf for taking over the main sponsorship from EBAC, and I hope that we’ll have a successful partnership.  I would also like to say thank you to all our sponsors for continuing to back us, their support is very important and very much appreciated.

A regular question that is asked of me is about progress on the ground. We can’t say much publicly for reasons of confidentiality, but I am in discussions about the funding of the ground, while we are in discussions with leading figures of the council. I will update you as and when I can through official channels.

Unfortunately, we have lost one of our most loved fans, Mary Bowes, during the close season. Tina and I attended her funeral, which was very moving, and I could tell by the many Darlington fans, officials and ex officials who attended, how much she was loved.

You will also notice in today’s programme a long article about the incident at Scarborough. We are obliged to do this by the FA.

Without a doubt, that incident has caused a huge amount of work for some people at the club. I have condemned the behaviour of a small section of our fans that day on several occasions and I make no apology for doing the same again. It is not acceptable and there cannot be a repetition. The FA will be watching us closely in different ways, and we must make sure that we follow their instructions to the letter.

We need the message about our zero tolerance towards abuse and discrimination to get through, otherwise we will be in bigger trouble with the FA. We will be repeating this message before every game, home and away, we need everyone to be on their best behaviour.  As well as being fans, you are also ambassadors, and we want everyone to stand for what is best about a family-owned club. We want to create a family-friendly atmosphere at all our games and make everyone feel welcome.

We will also be liaising with opposing clubs about the issues we’ve had in order to pre-warn them and we are in the process of appointing a Supporter Liaison Officer to help us implement our action plan, and develop stronger links with all our stakeholders.

Finally, I would like to welcome our guests and our opponents, Curzon Ashton, this afternoon. I hope everyone has an enjoyable day.