THE DARLINGTON ARENA

Darlington, England

WSPE-463

The Darlington Arena (known as The Northern Echo Darlington Arena for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in England that hosts Darlington Football Club's home fixtures.

Prior to moving to the ground in 2003, Darlington had been playing at Feethams, located near to the town centre. The current stadium is built on a greenfield site next to Darlington's A66 bypass.

Upon completion the arena was originally called the Reynolds Arena, after the club's then-owner, George Reynolds. However, following Reynolds' bankruptcy and arrest on charges of money laundering, the name was changed to The New Stadium in April 2004. Since then the club have sold the naming rights for the stadium to sponsors, firstly as the Williamson Motors Stadium then as the 96.6 TFM Darlington Arena between November 2005 and September 2007, and then as the Balfour Webnet Darlington Arena between September 2007 and February 2009. The ground took its current name in February 2009 when The Northern Echo began sponsorship. It is the largest Blue Square Premier venue with a capacity of 25,000, although attendances are restricted to 10,000 by local planning laws.

A crowd of 11,600 watched the first game in the new stadium for a 2–0 defeat to Kidderminster Harriers. Since then the ground has averaged a gate of around 3,000 to 4,000 supporters, although certain fixtures such as derby match against local rivals Hartlepool United in March 2007 (10,121 spectators), have pulled in a significantly larger turnout.

Unused 4" x 6" continental size chrome.

World Stadiums Postcard Edition