Simon Weatherill continues his popular series with the home game against Wigan Athletic on 13^th September 1980.

The 1980/81 season kicked off with Billy Elliott, in his second year at the helm, promising to do things differently. The club had finished the previous season in the bottom four re-election places and Elliott reacted by releasing eleven players and vowing that from now on Darlington would rely on a much smaller, younger playing staff. He named Donald Ball as club captain who at the age of 18 became the youngest captain in the Football League. Only four new signings were made before the season kicked off. Goalkeeper Pat Cuff was signed from Millwall, full back Alan Kamara from York City, central defender Peter Skipper from Hull City and midfielder David Speedie was brought in from Barnsley. The club kicked off the new campaign with one of the youngest sides in the club's history. Only two players, Cuff and midfielder Harry Charlton, were over the age of 24. Cuff injured his back in the first game, so his place in the side was taken by 19 year old Kevin Barry, so the team’s average age became even lower.

The team made an average start to the season with two wins and a draw from their first five games, so that when Wigan visited Feethams on September 13th, the Quakers sat in mid table with 5 points. Wigan were making their third visit to Feethams after replacing Southport as a League side in 1978. Their previous two visits had both resulted in draws.

The build up to the Wigan game was dominated by transfer news, Elliott finally managing to land one of his long term targets when he secured the services of left back Harry Wilson from Preston North End. The 26 year old had 180 league appearances under his belt in spells at Burnley, Brighton and Preston and would add some much needed experience to help the youngsters in the team, said a delighted Elliott. Wilson would slot straight into the team in his preferred left back position to replace Dave McLean, who had been filling in at full back in the early games. McLean could then move into his preferred position in midfield, to replace Ian Hamilton, who had been ruled out with flu. Cuff failed a late fitness test, so Barry continued in goal. Wigan had themselves strengthened their side by signing defender Brian Kettle from Liverpool for £30,000. Kettle would make his Wigan debut in the game.

A crowd of 2020 were at Feethams to see Wigan make a strong start to the game. There was an early spell of sustained pressure from the visitors which kept the home defence busy, but Wigan were unable to trouble keeper Barry, McMullen going closest when he headed wide. Darlington took the lead after 14 minutes against the run of play. New signing Wilson played a perfect through ball to John Stalker who shrugged off a weak tackle by Neil Davids before shooting calmly across goalkeeper John Brown into the far corner.

The lead only lasted ten minutes before Wigan drew level with a gift equaliser, when Dave McLean tried to steer a right wing Fretwell cross out for a corner but only succeeded in turning the ball inside his own post. Harry Charlton and Alan Walsh both went close as the home side pressed forward, but with Tommy Gore working well in midfield, the visitors were always a threat. Darlington finished the half well on top with three corners in quick succession but couldn’t make the pressure tell. Half time 1-1.

Wigan started the second half strongly with substitute David Glenn hitting the angle of post and bar before McMullen missed the target from 12 yards when in the clear. Darlington hit back and regained the lead in the 77th minute. David Speedie played a brilliant through ball into the path of Stalker, who again outstripped Davids before lobbing over the advancing Brown from an acute angle. Wigan recovered and Frank Corrigan squandered a great chance to equalise when he headed Gore’s cross wide from only five yards out. Stalker sealed the victory in injury time when he completed his hat trick with a fine solo goal. He turned Davids and Methven on the edge of the Wigan box and fired towards goal. His shot was beaten out by Brown but Stalker snapped up the rebound to celebrate the first Feethams hat trick since Eddie Rowles had put three past Scarborough in the FA Cup in 1976. While Stalker stole all the headlines with his goals, Alan Kamara was man of the match with an outstanding performance at right back. New boy Wilson made an impressive debut but unsurprisingly faded in the last 20 minutes due to a lack of match fitness.

The 3-1 win took the Quakers up to ninth in the table, only three points behind leaders Lincoln, and hopes were high that they could mount a concerted push for promotion. In typical Darlington fashion though they shot themselves in the foot by losing their next four games. They spent the whole season just out of reach of the promotion race, comfortably in the top half of the table, but never really threatening the top four. They eventually finished the season in a creditable eightth place with 49 points, six points behind fourth place. The much improved season was due in no small part to the potent strike force of Stalker and Walsh, who managed 40 goals between them throughout the season. Walsh finished with 23 goals and Stalker with 17.

The programme for the 80/81 season consisted of 16 pages, with minimal advertising and some interesting features. It was printed by Parkgate Press in Borough Road and cost 20p for the first half of the season, later rising to 25p. Regular features were Billy Elliott’s column, club secretary’s notes by Dave Thorne, two pages introducing our visitors, a profile page on a different player each week, numerous photos from previous games, results and statistics for the first and youth teams and the team line-ups. Frank Tweddle also wrote a column about previous encounters with our opponents and a review of what was happening elsewhere in Division Four. He also contributed a very interesting occasional item entitled Looking Back, covering a piece of Darlington history.

Team v Wigan : 1 Kevin Barry 2 Alan Kamara 3 Harry Wilson 4 Donald Ball 5 Peter Skipper 6 David Speedie 7 Dave Hawker 8 Harry Charlton 9 John Stalker 10 Dave McLean 11 Alan Walsh Sub Kevan Smith (not used).