Striker Carl Airey was one of the stars of our successful 1985 promotion winning campaign.

Here, adapted from Darlo's on the Up he remembers his Darlo career.

I made my debut at Barnsley at the age of 17 and scored at Crystal Palace. I scored five goals for them in about 30 games most of them as sub. Then the manager, Norman Hunter, was sacked and Bobby Collins took over. Bobby called me into his office one day, and said that Cyril Knowles was interested in signing me for Darlington, but Bobby said that he didn’t want to let me go, and that he would give me games.

But I figured that if I couldn’t score in the second division because I wasn’t playing, I might as well play regularly in the fourth division with Darlington. It was a change as far as I was concerned, and Cyril paid £5,000 for me.

Playing for Darlington turned out to be the best time I ever had as a player in my career. Winning promotion was probably the high point of my playing career, and was the only time in my pro career that I won a trophy.

I lived in Yorkshire, and didn’t need to move up to Darlington because there were two lads also travelling up – Phil Lloyd and John Hannah – so it was good for taking turns driving. Cyril used to give us a couple of days off as well.

There was a great spirit around the club, and everybody knew everybody else. The fans were really close to the players.

The highlight of my stay was the FA Cup win over Middlesbrough at Feethams. We were leading 2-0 when the Boro fans invaded the pitch and tried to get the game abandoned. With so many people on the pitch and little bits of trouble here and there, we were worried that the game was going to be abandoned.

But the ref came into our dressing room, and said; “Don’t worry about it, we’re going to finish this game even if we have to stay here until one o’clock in the morning!”

We went back on the field and won 2-1. Telford beat us though in the next round.

I can remember on a couple of occasions when games were postponed unexpectedly. There was once when we had a few injuries a game was postponed because a hosepipe had been left on all night near the bottom corner at the Polam Lane End – the one next to the river – and the next day the match was called off because of a waterlogged pitch!

Training was horrendous sometimes when Cyril wanted to play murderball. The season after we won promotion, Cyril brought in Steve Carney to replace Kevan Smith.

We went into the Quaker Sports Centre for a game, and Steve pulled out of a tackle. Cyril yelled at the top of his voice; “Never pull out of a tackle!”

Steve couldn’t believe it, and on the way back across the field from the Quaker Sports Centre to the changing rooms, he said to me; “I wish I’d never signed.”

There was another time when we trained in South Park, just across the river from Feethams. One Friday, we had a seven-a-side on the park, and as usual, Cyril turned up after we started. The mood used to change then, it got a lot more serious. Cyril pulled Phil Lloyd over and whispered something to him.

Within a minute or two, Phil had kicked one of the lads injuring him, and Cyril said; “Right, that’s tomorrow’s starting eleven and two subs sorted!”

 Like all the other players, I got some bollockings from Cyril, but they didn’t really affect me. He knew who he could bollock, and who he couldn’t.

Some players were affected badly and others weren’t. Garry Haire once got a severe bollocking, and I’ve never seen anybody shrink as much as he did. Garry just couldn’t play in the second half of one particular game, and Cyril had to substitute him.

We used to get bollockings regularly, and we always knew when they were coming – which was more often than not.

I upset Cyril when I left. I’d had a bad knee injury, which Cyril thought had done me. I got back into the team near the end of the 1985-86 season and Cyril knew of an agent who was touting English players in Belgium. Cyril called me into his office one day, and said that the club had received an offer of £50,000 for me from a club in Belgium.

“I’m not going,” I said.

Cyril erupted, and shouted that because of the injury, I wasn’t the same player. He went really red in the face.

I accused him of taking a backhander, which maybe wasn’t the wisest thing to say, and eventually I walked out of the office. I went over to Belgium out of curiosity, and the club offered me a signing on fee of £10,000 and a weekly wage of £400. I was only on £200 at Darlington! I said; “Give me a pen and paper.”

Things didn’t work out there, and to say that they were poor is an understatement. I couldn’t understand the other players, and somebody had to translate for me.

I started playing ok again at Christmas, when John Duncan of Chesterfield came in for me, and took me on loan for the rest of the season.

I refused to return to Belgium, and one of the lads put me in touch with Norman Hunter, who took me to Rotherham on loan for a full season.

By then though, my knees were in bits, and I had an operation on each knee. When I was recovering, Cyril Knowles phoned, and asked me to go down to Torquay. “I can’t get out of the house, let alone go to Torquay!” I replied.

When I got the bandages off, I went to Torquay and Cyril introduced me to a very good physio, Norman Medhurst, who was also one of the England physios. He got me fit again, and one day, Cyril took me to a little nine hole pitch and putt course in Paignton, and made me do loads of sprints. When I finished, I was sick all over the place. Cyril said; “Things are all right now, I’m signing you!”

I played at Wembley for Torquay in the Sherpa Van Trophy final against Bolton, but we got hammered 4-1. I think we upset them by scoring first that day, Bolton had a very good side. Cyril didn’t even bollock us that day!

After pro football, I played for Salisbury as well as buying a Unigate milk franchise (that’s where the milkman story comes from), and after a couple of years of getting up at two in the morning which I hated, I moved back to Yorkshire and worked for Walkers Crisps for ten years.