Darlington Mowden Park R.F.C - Look out Aviva! :o

Anyone else been keeping an eye on whats been happening in Darlington in the past year or so?

In 2003 Darlington football club had big dreams of making the Premier league and built a £30m, 25,00 seater stadium (The Darlington Arena). Sadly they bankrupted themselves doing it. And they closed in June 2012. A new club has been opened called Darlington 1883, but their stadium has been left without a tenant.

In December 2013 Darlington Mowden Park R.F.C bought the stadium and 17 acres around it which is to be turned into training pitches, renaming it the Northern Echo Arena. They also have an option to buy a further 22 acres in the future.

Amazingly Darlington sold their existing Yiewsley Drive ground to a property development company for £6m pounds, and secured the stadium and the land around it for a mere £2m pounds, meaning their £4m up on the deal!

The Arena boasts 3 large function rooms, 30 executive boxes, substantial changing facilities, excellent playing surface and of course 25,000 seats, making the Club the owner of the largest rugby arena outside of Twickenham in England.

Currently the club runs 23 teams, from junior, to womens to their 1st XV.

With Darlington Borough Council’s backing, the Club and Arena will be available for use with other events such as concerts, park and ride, car boot sales.
They are also in discussions with Middlesborough FC to have their u21 play there, and also with the RFU to potentially have Saxons and Womens internationals there.

Currently second placed in National 2 North, one division below the Championship and with a squad with an average age of only 22, things look very interesting for that club!

One year from now these guys could be on the verge of the Premiership and then we will really have something to talk about!   

National Two North is below National One, which is below Championship. Nice deal but they've got a LONG way to go yet. And hopefully they'll do it properly rather than just buy in the best players.

BTW is the stadium 2,500 or 25,000? I'm guessing you missed a '0' and it's the latter.

Shifty wrote:Anyone else been keeping an eye on whats been happening in Darlington in the past year or so?

In 2003 Darlington football club had big dreams of making the Premier league and built a £30m, 25,00 seater stadium (The Darlington Arena).  Sadly they bankrupted themselves doing it.  And they closed in June 2012.  A new club has been opened called Darlington 1883, but their stadium has been left without a tenant.

In December 2013 Darlington Mowden Park R.F.C bought the stadium and 17 acres around it which is to be turned into training pitches, renaming it the Northern Echo Arena.  They also have an option to buy a further 22 acres in the future.

Amazingly Darlington sold their existing Yiewsley Drive ground to a property development company for £6m pounds, and secured the stadium and the land around it for a mere £2m pounds, meaning their £4m up on the deal!

The Arena boasts 3 large function rooms, 30 executive boxes, substantial changing facilities, excellent playing surface and of course 25,000 seats, making the Club the owner of the largest rugby arena outside of Twickenham in England.

Currently the club runs 23 teams, from junior, to womens to their 1st XV.

With Darlington Borough Council’s backing, the Club and Arena will be available for use with other events such as concerts, park and ride, car boot sales.
They are also in discussions with Middlesborough FC to have their u21 play there, and also with the RFU to potentially have Saxons and Womens internationals there.

Currently second placed in National 2 North, one division below the Championship and with a squad with an average age of only 22, things look very interesting for that club!

One year from now these guys could be on the verge of the Premiership and then we will really have something to talk about!   

You need to bear in mind that the local council have capped capacity at 10,000 due to a lack of access.

George Reynolds really did build the dictionary definition of a white elephant and killed off Darlington FC in the process.

At least they have been reborn and are working their way back up the pyramid and ironically have plans to move in with and expand another local rugby club ground.

Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Seems like Darlington Mowden Park took advantage of a perfect opportunity. Let's hope they build something great. Are there a lot of Rugby fans up there? Or will they have to grow them as well as growing their club? Seems a perfect opportunity for Rugby in the North.

It's capped at 10,000 for the safety certificate however the attendance can go over 10,000 because I have read that they had 17,000 for Elton John when he did a concert there.

If you can sell your ground for £6m and get a 25,000 seater for stadium and all that surrounding land for £2m then I think you have done pretty amazing business.

You give up this:


But you get this, and £4 million in the bank.


The new chairman of the club who took over in June is called Mike Keeligan and seems to have pretty extensive business interests in the Asbesdos industy.

http://www.amac.org.uk/16334.html?*session*id*key*=*session*id*val*

When you read about it seems they seem to trying to do some kind of tie up with Newcastle which will help them and you wonder if they may also allow the football club back for extra revenue.

Shifty, most Darlington FC fans never want to set foot in the place again!!
It was one man's (Reynolds) vanity project and a catastrophe for the club.

I agree its a great bit of business by Mowden Park RFC but concerts offer their best chance of filling it and conferences their best bet of paying for its upkeep. Their crowds are in the hundreds.

It seems bizarre that anybody would have ever thought a 25,000 seater stadium would be appropriate for a town the size of Darlington. You're talking about a quarter of the population of the entire town to fill it! It's not like there isn't competition from other sports either. There are a number of big football clubs and the county cricket club near(ish) by.

IF Darlington MP did get to the Premiership, all I could see happening is them getting a weekly gate of between 4000 and 7000 in this cavernous stadium and there being zero atmosphere. I'm all for ambition, but I hate to watch rugby being played in front of swathes of empty seats.

Pretty cool story.

It is a great story and nice to see a club who sell their ground to a developer/Tesco not spend it all away in the short term and use the money for a successful future build on sustainable foundations. Could well be a force in Northern Rugby in time to come. Also, they had >1,000 people at their last game vs Hull, which they won 52-7. Their nickname is the Sharks. . . Sale should be worried.

http://www.rugbyroundup.com/stats.php?leagueID=4&statType=attendances

oddly enough the BBC have now done a report on this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25505385

Theres plenty other Northern clubs flying high at the moment. Tynedale, Blaydon, Percy Park. I think the Darlington MP Ladies team is in the top division though isnt it?

Mowden Park Sharks are yes.

They're first team are pretty average in there league though. They came up trumpt a few years ago when Falcons signed a lot of Kiwis for them to see what they where like.

End result was that the Kiwis where not good enough for DMP 2nds never mind there first team but they had to play them with Falcons paying the way.

Currently the only thing DMP have going for them is the stadium. Macc are the quality team in N2 North, and Stourbridge and Sedgley Park (both recently relegated from N1) will push hard in the second half of the season.

Reaching National 1 will need significant strengthening of any team. Then the Championship is another level altogether. Ealing are my second team and I know how hard the Championship is without significant investment in the playing squad. Plus getting some dual registered Premiership academy players that are actually released to play for you.

I agree that DMP have a long way to go before worrying the premiership - or even the championship. However, there are a number of clubs in the premiership that would give a lot to be in their position stadium wise, and if you are going to work your way up it's a seriously good starting point.

In the short term I would imagine that the £4m change might help improve their squad and training facillities, and if they can get a profit by running other events using the facilities at the ground then that will feed back in and help as well. A deal with the Newcastle academy would probably do them a world of good as well if it can be managed.

As pointed out above, the ladies team are in their top division, and that's something they can try and market as well. I've been planning to take my eldest daughter to see them for a few weeks - hope to manage it in February. I think a women's rugby team would provide better role models than most of the celebrity muppets knocking around these days. Plus she's only 5 so going to see Newcastle may be a bit noisy. And if I'm honest the rugby may not be much more entertaining if we went to see Newcastle as well. No disrespect intended to Newcastle with that last comment, but I'd hope that the women's game at the top level would be pretty decent - happy to report back after I've been.

In terms of could they ever fill the stadium... it would be tough. It's not a big town but county Durham and north Yorkshire do have a lot of decent small rugby towns. There would be plenty like myself willing to travel 20/30 miles to get there if they were putting out a decent team and playing good rugby. Not that dissimilar to my time as a regular at Welford Road, where a lot of Tigers fans travel in from the market towns around Leicester.