Simon Weatherill talks about the 2-1 home win over promotion chasing Aldershot on 28^th October 1978 in today's Memory Match.

The 1978/79 season saw Peter Madden begin his fourth season as manager – quite an achievement in the unpredictable world of Darlington Football Club in the seventies. (The club had gone through seven managers in the previous four seasons prior to Madden’s appointment.)

The season started promisingly in the League Cup with victories over Mansfield and Fulham before a battling third round defeat to Everton, 1-0 at Goodison. The league form was less impressive though and one win from the first six games (with only two goals scored) meant that the Quakers were already struggling at the wrong end of the table. Madden had identified the need for a centre forward and spent the summer and the early weeks of the season trying to recruit the man he wanted. He made a £15,000 bid for Terry Eccles from Huddersfield but missed out when Eccles elected to move to Ethnikos in Greece. Next was a £16,000 bid to Cambridge for Sammy Morgan but he went to Sparta Rotterdam. Madden then made an incredible £35,000 bid for long term target Joe Cooke from Bradford but that bid was rejected. (Cooke eventually signed for Peterborough.) The breakthrough in the transfer market came in October when Madden paid Middlesbrough £20,000 for Alan Walsh. Walsh made his debut in the away game at Rochdale on October 21st. The game ended in a 2-1 defeat and proved to be Madden’s last game in charge. He was asked to resign after the defeat and was replaced by player/coach Len Walker. One of Madden’s final acts as Darlington’s manager had been to secure the signing of Walsh, who would go on to become a club legend and the club’s highest ever goal scorer. It is debatable whether that important transfer would ever have happened if Madden had been successful with one of his other transfer targets.

Madden left with the club third from bottom in the table with just 10 points from 14 games. Under Walker things improved very slightly with four wins and four draws from their next twelve games that lifted them to 19th place, but three consecutive home defeats in March dropped the club back into the bottom four. Walker strengthened the squad by signing John Peachey from Barnsley for £7,000 and securing Graeme Hedley on a month’s loan from Middlesbrough.

Len Walker welcomed some old friends to Feethams when Aldershot visited on April 3rd. He’d made 450 appearances for the Shots (a club record) in a 14 year association with the club which had ended when he’d moved to Darlington as Madden’s assistant. Aldershot were flying high in the division and were pushing for promotion. They were sat in third place, only three points off the top, and would provide a difficult test. Darlington had injury problems for the game. Top scorer John Stone was missing with a groin strain and Neil Hague also missed the game after being involved in a car crash earlier in the day. Hedley was making his home debut for the club and Dave Crosson stepped into central defence to replace Hague.

A disappointing crowd of only 1267 braved the horrible weather to see Darlington make a bright start to the game. They should have taken the lead after only eight minutes when a deep Dennis Wann corner was headed back across goal by Derek Craig but John Peachey headed straight at visiting keeper Glen Johnson from only a couple of yards out. It proved a costly miss as the Shots went straight down the other end and opened the scoring. A long ball forward was flicked on by Dungworth and Andy Needham outpaced the home defence and tucked the ball neatly past Martin Burleigh. Darlington continued to press forward, prompted by Hedley who was running the midfield, and Alan Walsh who was continually testing Johnson in the visitors’ goal with a string of shots and crosses with no reward.

The best chance fell to Peachey again when Johnson parried a Walsh shot but the centre forward lifted his shot over the bar from 12 yards out. Hedley almost equalised just before half time but his clever lob was brilliantly saved by the agile Johnson. The one way traffic continued in the second half with Aldershot only threatening occasionally on the counter attack. Walsh drove a fierce 35 yard free kick just wide and then Dave Crosson moved up from the back to hit a scorching 30 yarder but he was denied by another acrobatic Johnson save.

Just when it seemed as if the Quakers were beginning to run out of time the pressure paid off and they equalised in the 69th minute. Hedley was fouled 25 yards from goal. Walsh’s fierce free kick was parried by Johnson but this time Peachey was on hand to fire home the loose ball. Six minutes later the home side were in front, from another free kick. Dennis Wann was fouled out wide on the left. He picked himself up and curled in the free kick that was headed powerfully home by Peachey from ten yards out. The home side continued to press forward and nearly added a third when Ron Ferguson headed narrowly wide from a Hedley cross. Darlington had put in their best performance for months and thoroughly deserved the two points. Man of the match was Peachey for his two goals, but he was ably assisted by Hedley, who dominated the midfield and Walsh who was always a threat going forward.

The win meant that the Quakers remained in the bottom four but with 13 games to play, hopes were high that beating one of the better sides in the division might lead to a run of form to drag them away from trouble. The season long problem of a lack of goals continued to hold the team back though and three wins and five draws from the last 13 wasn’t enough to lift them up the table. Darlington finished in 21st place and had to apply for re-election, along with Doncaster, Halifax and Crewe. The poor finish cost Walker his job. He was sacked in the summer and replaced by Billy Elliott.

The programme for the 78/79 season consisted of 12 pages and cost 15 pence. Regular features were Len Walker’s column, two pages introducing our visitors, results and statistics for the first and reserve teams and the team line-ups. Frank Tweddle wrote a column about previous encounters with our opponents and also contributed a very interesting occasional item entitled Looking Back, covering a piece of Darlington history.

Team v Aldershot :  1 Martin Burleigh 2 Clive Nattress 3 Jimmy Cochrane 4 Graeme Hedley 5 Derek Craig 6 Dave Crosson 7 Barry Lyons 8 Dennis Wann 9 Alan Walsh 10 John Peachey 11 Ron Ferguson Sub Jimmy Seal (not used).