Darlington skipper Kevin Burgess has revealed that he had never been on a hat trick in his career before last Saturday.

Captain Kev scored twice on Saturday against Colwyn Bay – the first from close range and the second a header – and for the last eight minutes of the game he was looking for the first hat trick of his football career.

“It was a fantastic overall performance by the lads,” he said.

“In the game before against Whitby, we were a bit rusty, but on Saturday we put Colwyn Bay under great pressure. If we’d taken our chances and the ball had gone into the net off the post and the crossbar instead of going away from it, we could have had five or six, but 3-0 was good enough for us.”

Quakers took the lead with a Terry Galbraith penalty, and Kev admitted that if he was in the same position as Tez, he wouldn’t have liked to have taken it.

“I couldn’t have taken the penalty at 0-0. I was so nervous when Tez was getting ready to take it, and then he stuck it away so well. There was no way I could have done that, it was the most nervous I’ve felt for a long time.”

Kev scored against Colwyn Bay earlier in the season, and with these two goals, he’s now got five in total in the league.

“Gary Brown and I went up for a setpiece, but Colwyn Bay cleared the ball. However, I saw us regain the ball, and I thought that I would stay up and gamble. There were two or three passages of play, and then Carts saw me at the back stick, and so he played the ball along that little corridor, and I had a little tap in. He was the first person I ran to when I scored in order to thank him! I watched the highlights, and I could hear one or two fans shouting “What’s he doing up there?”

“Mind you, I don’t think I would have stayed upfield if the score was 0-0, I would have sprinted back with Gary!”

Kev scored a header courtesy of Tez for his second goal, and he pointed out; “I like to be around for setpieces, because we have so much ability on the wings with Mitch, Thommo and Tez, that there are so many crosses coming in, that you’re almost invited to go into the middle.”

That left him eight minutes to complete his hat trick, and even though Colwyn had to put an outfield player in goal, he didn’t get the opportunity.

“There was one goalmouth scramble in which each one of our players had a shot at goal, but the ball wouldn’t fall to me.!”

Just like any other goalscoring machine, he hasn’t set himself a target for the season. “I’ll be happy to score a couple more this season.

“The only thing we’re concerned about now is winning matches and getting a run going. Personally, I welcome two games per week, I’d rather play Tuesday/Saturday as long as we stay injury-free.

“I knew we would improve after Tuesday night against Whitby. We can’t wait now to try and get into the top three.”