Here's a round up of how our youth teams fared last weekend in the Russell Foster Youth League and the Teesside Junior Football Alliance League.

Because of FA rules, we're unable to publish the results of any matches involving Under 11s and below.

U17 Boys

Wynyard 0

Darlington 2

The U17s travelled away to Wynyard in the Semi Final of the U18 County Cup.

From KO it was frantic by both teams and Wynyard seemed to settle first.  Darlington struggled to keep possession and string more than 4 passes and most of the play was in the centre of the pitch to which both teams filled their midfield.

Second half after a couple of substitutions and a tweak of formation on the 50th min Raphael Oppong found himself in space and fired a shot in from 30 yards in to the top left corner to make it 1-0.  Darlington then had a period of possession for around 10 mins to which we applied pressure but to no avail.  Wynyard had a change in shape and a fire in their belly but our defence handled the pressure well, especially Thomas Myers and Owen Harvey in the centre of defence.

Darlington made a few more substitutions to tighten their grip on the game  and on the 93rd minute up popped Raphael Oppong to slot away another goal to make it 2-0 and see Darlington progress to the final!

They proved that you can win games when you take your moments and sometimes you have to dig in and win ugly!

POM 🏆 Dom Stacey & Owen Harvey

⚽️⚽️ Raphael Oppong

U16 Boys

Darlington 9

Newton Aycliffe 2

Darlington overcame a potential banana skin to progress to the Semi Final of the cup against a Newton Aycliffe side who caused us problems in a pre-season friendly with their physicality and size.

Despite the heavy and uneven surface, not conducive to good football, Darlington set their stall out early by outrunning the away side off the ball and outplaying them with it. In the first half Darlington asserted themselves early on and never relinquished control of the game from this point. The goals took their time to arrive but after Luca Smith cooly finished the first of the game from the left edge of the box, Darlington’s confidence and quality began to show. Aycliffe’s goalkeeper was kept very busy, and by the end, fully deserved his MOTM performance making a string of spectacular saves to keep the score down. The half ended 2-0 to the home side.

The second half was a different story, despite the inspired away keeper, darlington rattled home 7 more in the second half including 4 from Lennon Harland (the 4th being a genuine worldie) and two from Troy Hollow, his first goals for the club. I’d told the players that the game was going to be won by being ‘effective’ instead of ‘pretty’ and they showed me I was wrong, proving both these qualities can happen at the same time.

For what had the potential to be a very tricky tie, Darlington really showed they mean business and were fully deserving the hefty victory. The Semi-Final awaits…

⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️ Lennon Harland

⚽️⚽️ Troy Hollow

⚽️ Luca Smith

⚽️ Finn Talbot

⚽️ Harry Maddison

⭐️ Lennon Harland

Match sponsors:

Claire Hogg Mortgages and Protections Ltd

U15 Boys

Darlington 5

Deerness Valley 1

Not pretty, but effective, on what was a very boggy pitch to play on.

It’s a win that keeps us in the title hunt, with a top of the table clash to look forward to next week.

Goals:

Dom ⚽️⚽️

Matty ⚽️

Paddy ⚽️

Dwyanne ⚽️

MOM: Matty 🏆

A debut goal after 2 minutes, and a brilliant all round display.

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U11 Boys

Darlington Quakers v Darlington Feethams

“Feethams” Goalscorers: TO (2), LE (1)

PoM: TO & KH

We are delighted to be going through to the Semi final of the Challenge Cup! Credit to the boys who came up against lively opponents. It was a typical January cup fixture meaning the boys had to be purposeful in their efforts to win the second ball. We did that well and created some good attacking situations by doing so. Good forward running by the front 3 gave us several 1v1, 2v1 and 3v2 moments. We just fell at the final hurdle on a few occasions due to a couple of outstanding saves by LP in the Quakers goal and a brilliant PoM performance by the Quakers central defender. A couple of goals scored by TO took us into the halftime interval with the lead and LE scored in the final minutes of the game. This came shortly after a late shot on target by the Quakers which disappointing for us could not be kept out of the net. It wasn’t a day for free flowing passing football in a style that we are accustomed to but nevertheless a good cup game. Best wishes to the Scott, Paul and their team for the rest of the season, a good team of boys with a great attitude.

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The Cross Keys (Gainford)

Firstly congratulations to Feethams as today’s game was played in great spirit, and best of luck to the boys and hopefully they can go on to win this competition.

Today was a very tough contest against a well organised Feethams side but from the KO our Quakers boys pressed and harried and did’t give our opponents much time on the ball to play their usual passing game.

Equally on a poor surface we got the ball down and really tried to get our own usual passing game away playing the ball out from the back extremely well and we also causing our opponents problems on a number of occasions.

After our second half pressure getting back into the game to make the score line 1-2 we were ready to have one last push to try and get on level terms and with all the excitement Feethams broke free with a superb very fast counter attack to seal their win.

If a couple of things had went our way today we maybe could have pushed for penalty’s and with the quality we have in goal who knows what might of happened.

We as coaches are very proud of this group of players and they are going from strength to strength they have progressed massively in a very short space of time.

POM  G L 🔥

Match Sponsor

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U10 Boys

North Ormesby Vics v Darlington Feethams

A stalemate today against 'The Doggy Boys' as they are known left both teams feeling ruff (... sorry!) Having been beaten by a good Ormesby team earlier in the season, today showed how much progress we have made recently as we created the majority of chances.  The Vics had some good chances to win the game too but both teams couldn't quite find the right finish when in good positions. Excellent heart and desire shown by our lads though. If we weren't proud of their efforts today we'd have to be barking mad.

U10 Boys

Darlington Feethams v Washington Utd Navy

Today we started very slowly and lethargic allowing the opposition to play nice football. Against the play we broke and scored through our CF OR with a nice strike. I thought this might have spurred us on but we continued the same and eventually conceded which had been a long time coming. Again through our centre forward doing all the hard work up front grabbed a 2nd goal to take us into half time 2-1 up.

Half time we had a frank discussion about our 1st half performance and in the 2nd we came out more improved. We had a bit of luck when SB went for the spectacular and mid kicked the ball which inadvertently fell into our CFs path for OR to Cooley slot away his 3rd of the game. The opposition heads dropped after this and SB scored a great goal. Another fine team move down the left hand side resulted in SB shot being partied into OR’s direction for him to finish it and getting his 4th goal of the game. SB then scored again to finish the game off.

Throughout the season I’ve said we have played really and come away with nothing, so today it was nice to play poorly foot large parts and come away with the victory.

Motm OR

The Feethams set up would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Sam Pascoe on his new role and we wish him all the success in his new endeavours…take care 👍

U9 Boys

Darlington v Wynyard

Played well in spits and spurts but a wins a win

U18 Girls

Darlington 14

Deerness Valley Phoenix 0

An unusual fixture today with Deerness only turning up with 10 players but they came out fighting and never gave up.

Darlington started off well creating plenty of chances and goals started to flow with a number of different scorers and going into HT 6-0 up.

Second half much of the same one way traffic but Deerness done their best to keep us quiet as much as they could, but unfortunately a few changes for Darlo and the tired legs of Deerness meant the goals kept coming late into the half

Big credit to the Deerness girls for not giving up and playing the game with only 10 players!

Scorers:

Lily W ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️

Katlyn ⚽️⚽️

Rachel ⚽️⚽️⚽️

Livia L ⚽️

Nicole ⚽️

Girl of the game ⭐️

Lexie

U13 Girls

Darlington 10

Washington 3

Today we welcomed second in the league to Eastbourne knowing we were in for a game.

On a heavy pitch the girls played the best football of the season with great pressure stopping Washington from playing .

Grabbing a couple of early goals gave us the freedom to play which the girls loved !

The passing and moving was exceptional today winning ever ball .

100% commitment today from the girls who could not have given anymore and kept going for 70 minutes with some great goals.

Darlo eventually came out 10-3 winners .

Goals

Izzy K ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️

Annie A ⚽️

Xienna ⚽️⚽️⚽️

Massive team display today!

POTM - Jasmine Johnson

U11 Girls

Darlington Quakers v Washington Lionesses

Today was all about getting minutes in the legs in what feels like forever since we have played a game.

The girls started brightly lots and lots of early pressure, Washington couldn't get out of their own half just couldn't put the ball in the net until we made the break through and not long after doubled the lead. Added another before the break.

Second half came and more and more intensity and lots more goals .... Goal of the game was a chip over the keeper from around 20yards.

Sooo proud of the girls today never stopped working to get minutes in and in different positions on what can only be described as a bog of a pitch but tried to play football the way we can.

PoM-Tk

Sponsor - TAK Therapies

U11 Girls

Darlington Feethams vs Redcar Town

A very good team performance today from all of the girls, everyone putting in 100% effort right till the end. The game started quick with some early goals for Darlington but Redcar we’re eager to get back into the game and reacted well.

Darlington dominated the second half from the off , creating some great passing sequences.

Some very good goals scored coming through great play.

Chloe M⚽️⚽️⚽️

Liv⚽️

Harriet⚽️