Darlington returned to the town last month when they played their first match at Blackwell Meadows, a new venue but with the familiarity of home due to the Tin Shed being resurrected from Feethams. Deputy Sports Editor Craig Stoddart reports on the rebirth of the terrace

DARLINGTON’S opening goal by Mark Beck on Boxing Day made for a momentous moment. Their first back in the town at their new home of Blackwell Meadows, it teed up a 3-2 win over FC Halifax Town which made for a happy homecoming, having been exiled in Bishop Auckland.

It was also their 500th in the league since leaving the town in 2012, and number 501 was hugely significant too.

Also scored by Beck in a 3-2 win over FC Halifax Town, it was the first goal at the Tin Shed end for thirteen and a half years.

Not since Neil Wainwright equalised against Leyton Orient in May 2003, during the farewell to Feethams, had a packed Tin Shed cheered a Quakers goal, but the much-loved terrace is born again.

It has been given a new lease of life, at least its roof has, at Blackwell Meadows after a Darlington company’s philanthropic gesture to aid its resurrection.

TM Ward, a haulage and plant hire company owned by Tony Ward, helped return the much-loved Tin Shed from Feethams, where Quakers played for 120 years until the club were taken to the Reynolds Arena.

Positioned at the north end of Feethams, a place that many still regard as the club’s spiritual home, it was a terrace that divided the football and cricket pitches, Quakers’ equivalent of the Holgate End, the Fulwell End or the Gallowgate. Not as big or noisy as their North-East neighbours, but no less cherished.

It was where the most vocal support would gather and where Darlington would kick towards in the second half, something they did for the last time on the final day of the 2002-03 season when Wainwright scored, his header earning a 2-2 draw.

Then the Arena became an unfamiliar ‘home’, while a derelict Feethams was vandalised and eventually demolished in 2006 at the request of Darlington Cricket Club, the landowners, who ordered the roof of the Tin Shed remain as a sightscreen until permission was granted to build houses on Quakers’ former home. Sacrilege, some would say.

Persimmon Homes began building in 2014, which is where TM Ward come into the story.

“Tony had put a tender in for the demolition of Feethams,” explained company director Martyn Jackson. “He was asked by the cricket club to leave the Tin Shed which is understandable because it was the biggest sightscreen in the world. So it stood dormant until 2013.

“It took about a month to come down. We could’ve taken it down in two days and scrapped it, but Dennis Pinnegar, Darlington’s chairman, wanted us to put it back up at the new ground.”

The new ground, however, for much of the time Darlington were based temporarily at Bishop Auckland, amounted to little more than ambition. Negotiations with Darlington Rugby Club dragged on seemingly interminably, and all the while the Tin Shed steelwork lay in pieces at Ward’s Faverdale base.

During this period different Darlington regimes briefly had opposing views on the old stand’s usefulness. Quakers and Wards, however, eventually agreed a price, but that did not stop a couple of optimistic Northern League clubs enquiring about the possibility of taking it out of town.

Jackson explained: “Mike Amos had done a bit in the Echo about the Tin Shed, so we had two clubs on asking about it. They were after a bargain.

“If you try and buy fabricated steel it would cost you a fortune.”

Darlington then took decisive action. Last year director Richard Cook made it clear the club would honour the deal agreed between Ward and a previous Quakers official – only to have the offer turned down.

“Richard worked as an apprentice engineer for Tony years ago as a peg basher, as Tony called him,” said Jackson. “You know when you see them on the sites marking it all out, that’s what he did for Tony years ago.

“Richard was really switched on and you could see it was going to happen. He came and said ‘do you want the money now? Next year? In two payments?’ “Tony said he didn’t want any money – how do you sell the Tin Shed back to Darlington Football Club? That’d be wrong. You just couldn’t do it. So the offer was honoured by Richard, but it was turned down.

“Tony was desperate for the Tin Shed to stay in the town. We’re both sport orientated people. I’ve done my Darlington games in my time. I saw my first one in 1974, I went to Telford in the FA Cup in the 1980s, I went to Wembley.

“When we took the Tin Shed down three years ago Tony said we’d need three lads. I said ‘no, only two’. He asked why not three. I said ‘it will be three – me plus two others’. I wanted to go down there for nostalgia, I wanted to be the one that took the last piece down at Feethams. Plus it’s nice to get your overalls on now and again as well. It’s alright being sat behind your desk all day, but it’s good to get out and about!

“There were people coming down for nuts and bolts as mementoes, pieces of tin. There were old women in tears who’d spent time in the Tin Shed watching Darlo with their husbands, they came down too.”

Instead of money, which would have been a five-figure sum, Wards settled for a couple of advertising hoardings at Blackwell, and a couple of season tickets, while they were also guests on Boxing Day.

A Quakers spokesman said: “The club is exceptionally grateful to TM Ward who not only carefully demolished the Tin Shed at Feethams, but also looked after the steelwork for four years and have now donated it to the club.

“We should thank Tony Ward who has been the custodian of the Tin Shed steelwork from the day of demolition at Feethams to the erection at Blackwell. Tony will be as pleased as everybody else to see the crowd of fans in the Tin Shed literally suck the ball into the back of the net with the noise that will be created.”

Jackson added: “Carmel Structures came and trimmed the steelwork by a metre as they didn’t need the depth on it at Blackwell. They then took them away to be blasted.

“The original sheeting could never have been reused as there were that many holes in it. You’d never get it lined up. But there’s 13 main pieces and the crosspieces – it’s the original framework. We did number them all when we took them down, but they were identical so it didn’t matter what order they went back up.”

JR & M Richardsons Construction re-erected the Tin Shed at Blackwell, where Darlington play today against Curzon Ashton when it will again be packed with fans.

Among them will be youngsters who never set foot in Feethams, some will not have even visited the Arena.

But there are plenty who remain emotionally attached to a venue where many saw their first football match, creating memories that have no doubt been evoked by the Tin Shed’s resurrection.