Quakers to follow Pools' example

MARTIN Gray last night revealed that Darlington are following Hartlepool United's lead by introducing new measures to bring a "togetherness" to the Quakers squad. Gray was impressed with the team spirit Pools players showed last season as they were promoted to League One.

And it is an element manager Dave Penney is also keen to instil at the Darlington Arena, especially after bringing nine new players to the club since the end of last season. "When you look at teams like Hartlepool, they have a real togetherness and that is something we have been trying to implement at Darlington," said Gray.

"We've made a lot of changes to our training schedules, which ensures the players spend as much time together as possible. "We all have breakfast, lunch and tea together so we've been spending a lot of hours in each other's company.

"The manager has put a lot of attention on the players bonding, which has been important because there are a lot of new faces at the club. But they've all gelled very quickly and we couldn't be any happier with the way things have gone so far."
Penney still expects to sign two more players before the start of the season, which kicks off at home to Wrexham on August 11.

With Martin Smith sidelined until August at the earliest, a winger is Penney's next target, despite the arrival of Rob Purdie and Kevin McBride. Some of Penney's new signings are likely to play in Thursday's friendly at Durham City.

Meanwhile, the club yesterday announced a short-term price freeze on season tickets. Fans can buy tickets at the current rate of £272 adults, £119 juniors (10-16), while students, disabled supporters and helpers will pay £187 until Monday. All season tickets include one free match day carvery.

Chief executive Jon Sotnick said: "We hope that keeping our prices static for an extra couple of weeks, and the ambition we have shown during this close season, will encourage fans to buy a season ticket."

well, you know what they say, you get what you pay for.

Earache off you for a start you whining old fart.

two new keepers
two new centre backs
and a utility man

Come on, pay attention

Compare and contrast with Georgie Reynolds....

"We don't want to be like Hartlepool, do we?"

I think he meant operating legally Mr Ross..........

Their new Chariman even looks and sounds like Reynolds..........Certanties for promotion he says

George says:

Reynolds says "Premiership in 5 years"
Houghton says "Championship in 3 years"

Do I detect a not too happy man

I do agree with your reflections, four out of contract signings and a loanee,
does not get the juices flowing (cue Atweasle)

If we offered £150K for Duffy, there must be a chance of a splash to come, lets hope.
Of course we may have a diamond in one of the new boys, but I can't see a sudden surge
in season ticket sales, just yet.
(now I'll have Mr Glasses slagging me off again, for being negative)

But the only one we got prior to season tickets going on sale was Nelse wasn't it. And the only one who cost owt was Nelse.
And those two strikers didn't contribute much after the first ten matches. Porter and Boyd came along and we've still got one of those two.
And this board is almost unanimous in preferring our current centre midfelders to Strachan.
And Wilson says he hasn't finished yet.
And Wilson seems to be showing some purpose in what he's doing. Cooper was grabbing at straws a bit with his signings (not entirely through his fault of course).
And no one here knows how much his signings wll increase or decrease the quality. You're all only guessing.
Er... that's it.

And you were far from the only one!

What I want to see is our midfield continually overunning the other teams'. The goals and defence will take care of themselves if we do that.
That's why my priority is the Kennedy and Johnson deals assuming they are as good as they're made out.

If Elliott's tackling is no better than Humphreys then how the hell has he played in the top flight as a defender?

McCunnie is a right back.

According to everything I've read about him he's a full back who can also play in midfield.

I've seen Micky Barron play central midfield for Pools and do it very well, but you'd hardly call it his best position.

According to everything I've read about him he's shite at right back and should only play in central midfield

SPAM?

If price is such a factor then stand up and it will only cost you £350.

Lazy old bugger

Eeeeh you do talk through your fookin hat sometimes you do.

First off, Humps is not, nor has ever been, a left back. He's just stood in there because we haven't had a left back since Cooper chucked Mark Robinson out. Admirably yes, but he's a midfield player.

I'm curious as to when you made your assessment of McCunnie?? Or is that a hunch? Fact is Willie Boland is well into his thirties and missed half of last season with injury. We had no cover for a defensive midfielder. Now we have.

When Nelse and Ben Clarke served suspensions or got injured last season what did we do?? Dropped Gary Liddle back and lost all the bite we had in midfield. Now we have cover and Liddle can be where he's most dangerous..

If there was weaknesses in the back four last year, how did we go all those games without conceding?? If we can't score goals, how come our centre forward shared the golden boot??

In fact, looking through the eyes of you fookers, how did we ever win promotion, we're shite..........

And don't come back with all that bollocks about 'we'll get found out in League One' because we were far too good for League Two, Forest and Leeds notwithstanding.

Oh yes we fookin' have!

isnt it just me or does noone think we have a stronger squad now that we had when we went to cardiff we should easily stay in this division as wilson shows he knows how to crack the wip

Cooper's sides always seemed a bit of a Heath Robinson job to me. In Wilson's sides the players seem to have well defined roles and the team more purpose.
Examples of players with ambiguous roles under Cooper: Matty, Ben Clark, Eifion, Strachan, Jordan, Tinks

Compare Ben Clark under Wilson with the same player under Cooper and Scott.
Even James Brown playing where he'd never played before has been able to stamp his mark on the right wing position in a way that I don't believe Eifion ever did.

Well there was Huuuggghhhhh............I'll grant you, but he missed more games than he played.
Which admittedly was a travesty. Had he played at Cardiff we'd have gone up.

The same could be said about Boydie.

Yeah but at least Boyd was on the pitch and they ganged up on him for the free kick and didn't worry about Daly.

Look at the photo, Boyd knew it had worked.