Famous Darlo Supporter

[windyforce4]

Was having a conversation last night with a Man U friend of mine about famous people who supported their team. After he named a thousand stars for Man U he asked me for a famous Darlo Fan. Total blank struck me....Could not think of anyone who is famous that attends or supports the mighty Darlo. I could of blagged it but would rather trust the Darlo faithful to help me out. Need to have something before I speak to him again.

[princes town]

vic reeves is always mentioned but wouldn't know if it was true. Can't say I have ever seen him at a game.

http://www.ave-it.net/famous_darlington_fans.htm

[theoriginalfatcat]

I can't think of anyone who is properly famous.

There was that WBA player who gave us a nice cash sum a few years back, is he called Morrison?

[Mr_Tibbs]

I can't think of anyone who is properly famous.

There was that WBA player who gave us a nice cash sum a few years back, is he called Morrison?

I believe James Morrison was born and bred in Darlo. I think he went to Hummersknott?

I doubt Vic Reeves has any interest in Darlo - don't know if he's that interested in football, at all.

I think Hodgy is about as famous as our fans get, either him or Scott.

[tezza]

Plenty of infamous supporters
G. Renolds
R. Singh
G. Tait ....the list goes on

[Mr_Tibbs]

Plenty of infamous supporters
G. Renolds
R. Singh
G. Tait ....the list goes on

Hardly "supporters". Out of those three only Bradley Hardacre has anything approaching celebrity status.

Let's face it, we only have proper supporters.

[Mission Impossible]

The late Lord Tom Burlinson.........who once played for us.

[Lawman3]

Daily Telegraph Crime Correspondent, Martin Evans, is a Darlo fan. Not famous, I know, but it's a start.

[Bogratsteve]

Vic has tried to deny he came from Darlo, hates the place by all accounts

[AIDO]

Was having a conversation last night with a Man U friend of mine about famous people who supported their team. After he named a thousand stars for Man U he asked me for a famous Darlo Fan. Total blank struck me....Could not think of anyone who is famous that attends or supports the mighty Darlo. I could of blagged it but would rather trust the Darlo faithful to help me out. Need to have something before I speak to him again.

Any old Tom, Dick and Harry can "follow" manure .... And they usually do as we all know - famous or otherwise (it matters not) ... Not just "anyone" can follow and support mighty Darlo ...... We are selective and exclusive by the shear nature of the beast, and long may that continue.

In my eyes, it must be the easiest thing in the world to go and watch the top clubs in the world play and say that you support them .... To follow Darlo, as we all know, is much more arduous and stressful (even over the last two amazing seasons). We are unfashionable, and even within the town, we, the current support, are scorned and mocked. However, to blazers with them ...... there is a sense of meaning, pride and achievement in supporting Darlo. We aren't "here today gone tomorrow" supporters who watch our team on a whim or because it is fashionable to follow a premiershit club or whoever.

We are all famous at Darlo, and each of us is worth a hundred or more would-be celebrity no nowts, who jump on the premiershit showcase bandwagon, but only when it suits.

[Mr_Tibbs]

Vic has tried to deny he came from Darlo, hates the place by all accounts

He's from Leeds originally, just came to Darlo when he started school.

[D_F_C]

Vic has tried to deny he came from Darlo, hates the place by all accounts

I think his mother still lives in the town.

[m62exile]

I think Rod Liddle from the Sunday Times has some connection and used to come to games every now and then?

[AndyPark]

Isn't there someone from Sky Sports who supports Darlo?

[Lawman3]

Rod Liddle is a prick. I really hope he isn't a Darlo fan!

[Cockerton48]

Can we call the late (Sir) David Frost a fan? Remember back in February 1973 he spent a week with the Club to record an episode of the Frost Programme.

[Makka Pakka]

Ruth Gemmell, actress. Apparently the brief mention of Darlo in Fever Pitch was down to her. Worth one as well.

[m62exile]

Rod Liddle is a prick. I really hope he isn't a Darlo fan!

Haha, he's the best we've got so far!

Actually he's a Millwall fan but came to watch Darlo in his youth due to his family connections. He watched us avoid re election in 1974 on the last day of the season Ina. Home win against Barnsley.

He wrote a piece about it in January 2012, blaming Reynolds, the council and the Football League for our problems and spoke warmly about Feethams.

So you may still think he's a prick, but at least he's our prick. Sort of.

[Fibonacci0112358]

Vic has tried to deny he came from Darlo, hates the place by all accounts

And what accounts would that be?

Talks about Darlington with fond youthful memories from what I've heard.

[Ash_Quaker]

James McMahon the editor of Kerrang! Magazine.

[Spyman]

Vic Reeves was born in the Leeds area from a Leeds family, but moved to Darlo when very young and grew up in the town. He makes no claims to have any affinity with the football club in his autobiography (Me:Moir) which is a cracking book and very open about his upbringing in Darlo.

Famous Darlo fans? Well seeing as most people from Darlo have chosen to support Newcastle, Liverpool, Man Utd, and these days Man City, it's no surprise that there aren't any famous Darlo fans. Hence our current plight.

Even the players who have started with us and gone on to build good professional careers don't claim to be Darlo fans!

[quakerfan]

How short is fame ?
Ian Hamilton moved to Darlington as a child from Scotland early enough to have no Scottish accent . This was in the days when the QE College in Vane Terrace was The Grammar School which he attended . I remember him because at one time I was in the same class as him , he was so brainy I was in absolute awe of him .
He moved away to Oxford University and then settled in London . He presided over a BBC 2 TV book review programme for a number of years and had books of poems he wrote published , also founding various short lived literary magazines .
His friends included Clive James , writer and TV show presenter , and Martin Amis , writer and dramatist , they might say that he was best known for inhabiting bars in Soho where he could outdrink all his friends and attract more women than anyone else they knew . One other thing they all knew about him was that he never gave up on his support for the Quakers , so much so that Amis named a character in a play he wrote " Ian Darlington " as a tribute to him after he died fairly young . He now lies in West Cemetery RIP .
To put the question of who is famous and supports Darlington FC the other way round , I don't know of any other club that has a character in a book named after them as a tribute to one of their famous fans !!!

[windyforce4]

If remember rightly a storyline in Coronation Street included their team signing a player from Darlo ? Think it was something to do with adirector or producer coming from Darlo.

[Stan_Darlo]

Stuart Hall?

[banktopp]

Queen Victoria.

Her majesty Queen Victoria often referred to the town as " Fair Darlington ". This is probably more to do with her intense dislike of York though.
Back in those days the Queen and Prince Albert would travel north to Balmoral and would sometimes stop in York. On one occasion during a walk about, she took a fancy to something and as was the custom this was presented to her. The trader whose goods they were, being a Yorkshireman, then demanded payment from one of Queen Vic's entourage. When the Queen found out she vowed never to set foot in York again and ordered that in future the Royal Train would have it's curtains closed before York and not reopened until York was far behind.
From then on the Royal Train would stop in Darlington on it's way north, and many grovelling and fawning speeches were made to the Queen by the good burghers of Darlington. This all went down tremendously well with the Queen who once the long journey had commenced from London , kept on asking are we at "Fair Darlington " yet.
In later years after Albert had " slipped off the dish " the queen was heard to remark to one of her ladies in waiting that her biggest loss was that Albert hadn't lived long enough to take her down Feethams to watch the Darlo.

[divas]

Hardly famous but Rob Parrish who works for Sky Sports along with the guy who is responsible for producing the league fixtures are both Darlo fans.

[theoriginalfatcat]

Vic Reeves was born in the Leeds area from a Leeds family, but moved to Darlo when very young and grew up in the town. He makes no claims to have any affinity with the football club in his autobiography (Me:Moir) which is a cracking book and very open about his upbringing in Darlo.

Yes, this is a good read. The young Moir/Reeves (in no particular order) knocks around Darlo and grows his hair/drinks/swims in rivers/holds down farming jobs/plays bass/bumps into Jungle !/and generally rebels a bit.

From reading the book I got the impression that he was quite fond of D'ton -the book ends when he leaves home to live in London, which means that there's no showbizzy stuff in it ....which is good.

[princes town]

How short is fame ?
Ian Hamilton moved to Darlington as a child from Scotland early enough to have no Scottish accent . This was in the days when the QE College in Vane Terrace was The Grammar School which he attended . I remember him because at one time I was in the same class as him , he was so brainy I was in absolute awe of him .
He moved away to Oxford University and then settled in London . He presided over a BBC 2 TV book review programme for a number of years and had books of poems he wrote published , also founding various short lived literary magazines .
His friends included Clive James , writer and TV show presenter , and Martin Amis , writer and dramatist , they might say that he was best known for inhabiting bars in Soho where he could outdrink all his friends and attract more women than anyone else they knew . One other thing they all knew about him was that he never gave up on his support for the Quakers , so much so that Amis named a character in a play he wrote " Ian Darlington " as a tribute to him after he died fairly young . He now lies in West Cemetery RIP .
To put the question of who is famous and supports Darlington FC the other way round , I don't know of any other club that has a character in a book named after them as a tribute to one of their famous fans !!!

Great story. I hadn't appreciated he wrote Gazza Agoniste a brilliant account of the Geordie genius which I read ages ago. He also set up a literary mag called The Scorpion at the QE which takes some doing at that age. Good shout.

[feethams]

James McMahon the editor of Kerrang! Magazine.

He supports Leyton Orient!

[Sussex07]

Stuart Hall?

Good shout for the World Champ..pretty sure vic/jim lived in Hewitson road as a kid.