Thanks to Paul Hodgson, here's the first chapter of his excellent book "When Push comes to Shove", the story of his life following Darlington FC.

We're serialising his book over the next fee weeks -- enjoy!

If you missed it, here's the introduction.

https://darlingtonfc.co.uk/news/when-push-comes-to-shove

Chapter One

July 1998

If you were to put me on the spot and ask if I was by nature a pessimistic or an optimistic person, I’d say that I was most definitely the latter. You only have to recall the events from Horden – especially the fruit machine episode – to know that I tend to see the glass as half full rather than half empty!

Likewise, whenever a new football season gets under way, I’m sure most fans are generally hopeful about what the future might hold for their club as the long-awaited kick-off approaches after the enforced summer break.

 The 1998-99 season was no different in that respect for supporters up and down the country, although if you happen-ed to be a Darlo fan expectations were running pretty high for the first time in many a year.

Despite the fact that the bookies had made us only 40-1 to win the title, anybody with any sense could see that we would be a force to be reckoned with in the Third Division. Not only did we have an experienced squad of twenty-four players, manager David Hodgson had made three very shrewd signings during the close season: former Middlesbrough centre-half Craig Liddle, ex-Sunderland and Derby County striker Marco Gabbiadini and former Manchester City and Sunderland defender, Gary Bennett (who assumed the role of player-coach).

 There were even rumours that Peter Beardsley had been spotted at the club on at least two occasions, fuelling further speculations amongst the supporters, although these rumours were never substantiated.

At long last, our dilapidated stadium had undergone a much-needed programme of renovation. In the past, this might have entailed no more than the crush barriers receiving a new lick of paint. This time, however, things were very different. Once the “speed humps” on the pitch had been removed and the surface expertly levelled using a laser the turf was then re-laid, all this at a cost of some £50,000. The icing on the cake, however, was the completion of the new £3 million East Stand.

To add the finishing touches to our more professional approach, we had acquired a swanky £75,000 coach from Everton. Surely, we thought, promotion was just around the corner?

The lure of being able to see the lads in action and to deter-mine the strength of our squad was too great to resist, so I travelled with Mike Jarvie, Steve Keeney and his friend Terry Johnson to see the pre-season friendly against Billingham Town in July.

To while away the time as Steve drove us along the A66 he regaled us with his account of a previous visit that he and I had made to Billingham in January of that year. Kevan Smith, the former Darlo captain, had invited the two of us to Keith Houchen’s testimonial dinner (Keith and Kevan were team-mates from their time together at Coventry City). The venue for the dinner was a pub in a run-down area of Billingham. As Steve recalled the events of that evening, the details came flooding back to me.

It certainly was a rough area, that’s for sure. The nature of the place could be gauged by the fact that when we arrived someone had just been forcibly ejected through an open win-dow of the pub and landed on the pavement outside, tumbling along like a rubber ball. Undeterred, the man calmly got up and climbed back inside through the same window from which he had been expelled!

We hadn’t even got out of the car before a drunk latched on to us and started to pester us for some spare change, though we eventually managed to shake him off.

 Things weren’t much better inside the pub, which was a real dive. After we had taken our seats, the nature of the place’s shady clientele became all too obvious when two men entered. Almost immediately, the regulars recognised them as being members of the local constabulary and started to whistle the familiar theme tune from the Keystone Cops, which soon echoed throughout the pub. Clearly unnerved by this hostile reception, one of the two men muttered within earshot of our table, “I’ve probably nicked half this lot before in my time.”

This wasn’t the end of the fun and games by any means. While Steve was standing at the bar, a toothless hag who looked at least sixty years old, tarted up like some caricature of a Parisian prostitute, accosted him and said, “If you’re looking for sex, dearie, you’ve come to the right place,” but Steve naturally declined her offer, pointing out that he was a happily married man.

One of the guest speakers that night was David Speedie, who was another former team-mate of Kevan Smith from their time together at Darlington and Coventry City. However, when Steve asked him how he had fared that day playing for his current club, Crook Town, the former Scottish International replied matter-of-factly, “I got sent off.” “Nothing much has changed then!” countered Steve, tongue in cheek.

 Speedie then went on to add that when the referee sent him off he told the man in black: “If you’d done that five years ago I’d have thrown you over the dugout.”

After Steve had finished his story, it wasn’t long before we arrived at Bedford Terrace and pulled up in the potholed car park. In fact, there were so many craters in that general area that you might have been forgiven for thinking that you had accidentally found yourself on the surface of the moon! Some-what circumspectly, we made our way towards the turnstile where a steward opened a gate to let us through.

The pitch was surrounded by a bumpy cinder track and Mike pushed me along it so that we could be near the halfway line. Whilst we were chatting, a familiar figure, clearly the worse for wear through drink, then offered me a signed black-and-white photograph of the Darlo team from the 1970s.

After some consideration, I decided not to pay his asking price of fifteen pounds, as it was rather tatty and dog-eared. I pointed out to Mike that this was the very same Darren who I had mentioned in my autobiography Flipper’s Side (see page 33).

For those of you who have not read that book, let me elaborate. In 1984 I was part of a group of lads travelling by train to Darlo’s away game at Exeter. On the morning of the match, Darren didn’t turn up at the station as arranged. The rest of the group thought no more of it and boarded the train without him. Anyway, with five minutes of the game remaining, Darren appeared in the away end, explaining that he had slept in. He had therefore caught a later train, paying full fare and knowing only too well that he would be lucky to see any of the match. Now that’s what I call loyalty! 

While Darren was showing me the photograph, Steve and Terry found themselves another vantage point from which to view the game, not before I had asked the latter, “Can I get you a whisky?” I should explain that Terry is a confirmed teetotaller, hence my attempted witticism. However, by this time I must admit that my running joke was wearing rather thin!

Looking around, I could see that the stadium only had one rudimentary wooden stand and a smaller one, which was in the process of construction. Given the improvements that Feethams had recently undergone, it was instructive to see how the other half lives, in the lower reaches of the non-league scene, and it reminded me very much of Horden.

Darren Collier, the ex-Darlo keeper, was between the sticks for Billingham Town that day and he was certainly the busier of the two goalies, making an absolute howler for our first goal.

The previous day I’d bet someone at work a fiver that Darlo would score six goals. And the score that day in this very one-sided encounter, I hear you ask? Yes, you’ve guessed it – 6-0 to the Quakers! For the anoraks amongst you, the goalscorers were Marco Gabbiadini, Mario Dörner, Jason De Vos (2) Lee Ellison and Darren Roberts.

This trip to Billingham was certainly an enjoyable way to start a new football season, and I hoped that the feast of goals that we had enjoyed would be a foretaste of things to come. As a final point, I should stress that I also took great delight in collecting the fiver from my work colleague the following Monday!

Not long after the Billingham friendly, Mike and I submitted a synopsis and an extract from the manuscript of our book Flipper’s Side to a publisher called Hamilton and Co. based in London. Much to our surprise, we received a letter within a couple of weeks stating that they felt our work deserved further consideration and that they wanted us to send them the whole thing.

 This news then lifted our hopes on two fronts. Firstly, we had genuine optimism that the Quakers were going to do well in the coming season and also that Flipper’s Side might make its bow before the general public some time in the near future.