Netcafe live with Brian Atkinson!

By Ray Simpson

Dec 10, 2015

 Good evening everyone and welcome to our netcafe with Brian Atkinson, the Darlo assistant mana...

Good evening everyone and welcome to our netcafe with Brian Atkinson, the Darlo assistant manager.

We had loads of questions for David Mills last month, so hopefully we'll have plenty for Brian.

We're at the Hardwick Hall Hotel, where there's an Abba tribute night on as well. Brian is singing Abba songs to himself!

Thanks everybody for logging on to the official website, we'll answer questions until 9.

Our first question from Chris Stockdale.

We seem to be training once a week on Wednesdays at the moment - is this correct?

I thought part of the reason we switched back to Tuesday night matches this season was because we were aiming to train 2x a week.

Especially with all the postponed matches recently wouldn't it be ideal if we were training 2x a week? Don't our promotion rivals train twice a week?

Brian; We try to manufacture to get the players in on a Thursday if we have a Tuesday night game. At the moment we're training Wednesdays because we don't have a midweek game.

We always try to have one training session per week, and if necessary, we'll have two.

What is your highest footballing moment and lowest footballing moment of the last 4 seasons and why?

Chris Mott from Teesside

Brian The highest was the play off semi final against Spennymoor when we were 2-1 down with 10 minutes left, and we won 3-2. I jumped up and fell over when we scored the winner! At 2-1 down, Spennymoor were doing well, and we were hoping to get back into the game then Hatchy scored and turned the game on its head. By the way I thought the most complete game we ever had against any team was the first Evostik league game against Spennymoor in August 2014 when we won 2-0, Graeme Armstrong scoring both goals.

The lowest point is the play off defeat against Ramsbottom, nothing seemed to go right from the very first minute when Leon Scott was injured.

(Don't forget about those Christmas presents folks. The club shop is open tomorrow between 10 and 1)

How frustrating is it for the continuing postponements? Are the team feeling confident for Saturday's game away to Stamford? Andrew Park.

Brian: It's very frustrating because a lot of preparation goes into them, in terms of tactics, training sessions etc, and if we don't play, we still have to prepare the players. A match is quite physical, and if you don't play the game, there's a danger of losing match fitness. Over the last couple of weeks we've had in house friendlies against Bishop Auckland and other teams.

Why is Graeme Armstrong continually on the bench? Was Lee Gaskell signed as stand-in until Armstrong regained fitness.

Andrew Foulds

Brian; We signed Lee to provide competition for places, and at the time David Dowson was injured, so is Amar, and Graeme needed a bit of a rest after playing most of the games from the start of the season.

Is Phil Turnbull ready to return from injury?

Brian: He's going to see a specialist on Monday. He's been involved in non-contact work in training sessions. Hopefully he'll get the go-ahead to play next week.

Neil Johnson

Can we not vary play in a match more when trying to play the ball long & high to Armstrong, for flick-ons, just isn't working?

Sometimes we have to do whatever it takes to win a game. It might be direct, or going down the sides. Sometimes we're restricted by weather conditions, such as last week at Barwell.

Frederick Smart Los Angeles

Who is the most skilful player you have played with and against?

Brian: With -- definitely not Martin Gray! John Byrne, who was a striker with me at Sunderland when we reached the FA Cup final in 1992.

Against -- Chris Waddle, because he was so difficult to read. He was left footed, so when we played Sheffield Wednesday when he was there I showed him to his right -- so what happened? He crossed perfectly with his right foot for someone to score!

Andrew Foulds

Back in early 2012, when fan ownership was suggested, I stated that fund-raising would be an ongoing & continuous requirement, but was booed off the park as a scaremonger.

At the recent fans forum, MG was banging on about the need to raise substantial funds for future progression as he 'wasn't going to stop' trying to push us back up the leagues, then the following Saturday the team put in an abject performance in the FA trophy, resulting in defeat, thereby missing out on additional income, which would have eased the burden on the hard-pressed fund-raising efforts.

Does MG have an aversion to cup competitions ?

Brian: We definitely didn't go out of the Trophy and the FA Cup on purpose. We wanted to do as well as we could in both of those competitions. We know that the FA Trophy means a lot, and we wanted to have a good run in the FA Cup. It could have been us not Salford in the second round of the FA Cup. We didn't deserve to win on both occasions against Hyde and Sutton Coldfield, but bear in mind we fielded a very strong team in both games.

The League Cup has given several youngsters the chance to play and they've done well.

Neil Johnson

Can invitational games be organised with the likes of Spennymoor reserves (with bucket collections for fundraising)?

When friendlies are arranged when matches are off can fans be notified, as some of us exiles travel great distances, to see the team in action.

Invitational games -- not a bad idea, but there are time constraints to take into consideration for both clubs.

Friendlies when games are off -- these are sometimes arranged at the very last minute. For example when the Grantham game was postponed, Martin phoned Steve Riley the Bishop Auckland manager and quickly arranged something on the 3G pitch at King James. Last Saturday we had a back up game arranged against Consett, but that had to be postponed as well because of high winds.

It also depends on the availability of facilities, we're not going to arrange a game if there are no dressing rooms, or if a pitch is unfit.

By the way, we'll be looking for your three best Darlo memories of 2015 soon for a piece on the website at the end of the year, and the matchday programme

Good questions so far, keep them coming folks!

How has Phil (Turnbull) taken to playing football at this level? How has he found the contrast between the Conference and the Evostik i.e. training, levels of fitness etc

David Collinge

Brian: Bizarrely, he's only missed one league game so far because of the weather (two with the Stamsford game this week), but we have missed him in terms of his experience and quality.

The biggest contrast he's found is combining a full time job with playing semi pro football. He asked to play at this level with Darlington, it was his choice to leave full time football and play at the highest level possible, which fortunately is with us in his opinion.

He's done great in training, his fitness levels are great, his attitude and his experience has been second to none. So hopefully he'll be back soon.

Coaching or playing? Which do you prefer? Si Crowe- m'bro

Brian: You think about the game more when you're coaching than you do when you're playing. The highs and lows are still the same, it still bothers you when you get beat, so the similarities are still there. You can have a good weekend or a bad weekend. There's only so much coaching you can do when the players go over the white line.

John McLean

Hi, as there seems to be no end to the rain combined with the shocking playing surface at Heritage Park, should we not be looking at making emergency arrangements with one of our northern professional clubs to put the game on when Heritage Park is not playable which seems to be the case at the moment ? or failing that using Durham 3G

Brian: This isn't really my domain, it's one for Dave on another day. We can only play on another ground that satisfies ground grading criteria with the league's permission.

The journeys to and from away games are quite long in this league. How do you and the players prepare for the games and are there any superstitions with players and coaches? Terry Boynton - Cumbria

Brian: Martin and I go through the team that we're playing against, and we study Harry Dunn's dossier. Sometimes I go and chat with the players at the back of the bus, while Martin sometimes has individual chats with the players (he waves at them to come and speak to him). A long journey is an opportunity to spend more time with the players, talk tactics, buildup morale, and after a game we do some debriefing.

New players have to sing an initiation song -- there hasn't been a bad singer so far, they've all been good!

They've all got their own seats, some lads play cards, some watch DVDs, each individual has their own means of preparing for a game.

[caption id="attachment_15415" align="alignnone" width="300"] Kevin Burgess -- a good rap singer[/caption]

If you could sign any player from any league, money no object what would be your dream team? Susan Neale - Darlington

That will take a while, Susan! I think the best player I would sign would be Ronaldo. 35 hat tricks for Real Madrid, 85 Champions League goals. Amazing.

How is Amar Purewal coming along?

He's making steady progress, he's been warming up before games as you might have noticed. There's still no timescale, he's had an injury that takes some time to overcome.

Why did the club release Rob Youhill?

He wasn't getting as much game time as he wanted. He had an elbow injury in pre season which sidelined him for a while. He couldn't get more time on the pitch because of the form of other players. When he did play, in certain parts of the match, there was nobody better than him.

Any more questions folks? Five minutes remaining.

Neil Johnson

Do DFC intend hosting or entering any weekend tournament in the next few years?

That depends on the availability of facilities, players and volunteers during the summer months when a tournament would be hosted. Plus in some cases, we would need to provide stewards, and even seek costly police co-operation.

What do you think of the standard of our youth set up?

It's getting better all the time. At the top end there is a big gap from the Under 18s to the first team. We need a reserve side where the youngsters can flourish a bit, and experience men's football so to speak. There's probably only a handful that can cope with it. It's ok putting the lads in for one game, but not several.

We have an expanding youth section which is attracting a lot of interest. We have just set up an Under 6s and Under 8s team, I myself coach the Under 11s. I watch games on Saturday mornings for the club, Saturday afternoon with the first team. Sunday morning the under 11s, Tuesday night first team games or under 11s, Wednesday night first team training, Thursday night possibly training or netcafes, so we're trying our best. Most of the staff are the same.

It will be possible for a youngster to start playing for the club at under 6, and play at every level over the next 12 years, and then appear in the first team. Our aim is establish the club as a Centre of Excellence in the near future, and that could be very good news for Darlington Football Club. We are aware that there is a lot of interest in our youth section, and we're receiving very good feedback from people who are reading match reports on the club website.

From Mal DickensonWho's better at table tennis, me or you? :)

Brian: I'll play you for a bottle of Moroccan Black hairdye!

And that's it folks! Many thanks for all your questions tonight, it's been a great success.

We hope to hold another netcafe in the New Year with one of the players.

In the meantime, watch out for a few more fan engagement ideas over the coming days.

Don't forget about the Christmas Draw tickets! We're thinking of doing the draw live on the website on Tuesday night from the Dolphin Centre. There won't be any Abba music either.