The club is very sad to learn about the passing of our former player, Allan Gauden, at the age of 75.

Allan joined us in 1968 from Sunderland, and was a key member of the team that went so close to winning promotion in the 1968-69 season, agonisingly losing to Bradford City on the last day of the season.

He went on to play 140 games for us, scoring 43 goals, until he moved on to Grimsby in the summer of 1972.

He was interviewed for the Farewell to Feethams book on 2002. 

He scored 15 goals in his first season, and he said; "We beat Workington 6-2 just after I signed, and I scored two of the goals. The fans carried me shoulder-high off the pitch.

"We thought that we were going to win the league. When we were beating Southend 2-0 at half time, we thought that we were home and dry and lost our heads a little bit. We lost 3-2."

In his second season, he didn't score as many. "I played for around two months with a cartilage problem. In those days if you had cartilage trouble, you knew that you would be out of the team for ages, so I kept on playing. In the end, though, I had to have the operation."

He scored 23 goals in his next two seasons, and then was asked to go into the manager's office.

"One day, the manager, Frank Brennan. and chairman George Tait called me into the office, and told me that Lawrie McMenemy, who was at Grimsby at the time, wanted to sign me.

"I told them that I didn't want to go, and that I was happy. George said that the club was struggling, and in the end, i agreed to meet Lawrie after a game at Sunderland.

"I agreed to sign, and Lawrie told me that I ws the only player that Darlington could sell for money."

Our sincere condolences go to Allan's family.