Darlington Football Club was formed in July 1883 after a meeting was held in the local Grammar School. Six years later, Darlington became one of the orginal members of the Northern League and won the title twice between 1896 and 1900.
In 1908 the club turned professional competing in the North Eastern League. They had to wait until 1921 before winning this particular title but when they did they were granted entrance to the newly formed Third Division North of the Football League. Once again, Darlington made progress winning the league in 1924 and thus promotion to the Second Division duly followed. However, relegation was to follow just before the start of world war two.
After the war, the club resumed participation in the Third Division North and championship success game in 1949. One of Darlo's most memorable cup runs came 8 years later as the Quakers reached the last sixteen, knocking out the mighty Chelsea. In 1958 Darlington became members of the newly formed Fourth Division, which meant they'd be competing against teams from the South of the country for the first time . Under manager Lol Morgan in 1966, Darlo finally achieved some success finishing second in the division and winning promotion to the Third Division. However, they were only to be there for a matter of years as the team were relegated in 1967 back to the bottom Division. In the eighties like Middlesbrough, a cash crisis threatened the clubs existence. Luckily, the town came together and raised the necessary money to save the club.
In 1985 manager Cyril Knowles took Darlo back up and a famous F.A. Cup win over Middlesbrough granted Darlo one of its most successful ever seasons. However, these glory days were to be a thing of the past as Darlo went back down in 1987 and crashed out of the Football League altogether in 1989 as they were relegated to the Conference. However, new manager Brian Little took the team straight back up and even achieved promotion to the third Division the following year. In 1992 the team were relegated back to the Forth Division and they have been there ever since even though they have come so close to promotion twice losing two play-off finals at Wembley. Yet, the future at Darlo has never looked better under new Chairman George Reynolds and the club is scheduled to move to a new 25,000 capacity stadium within the next few years.
