By Rupe
April 1 2002

Halifax Town travelled to Darlington today looking for a win to get a stay of execution for another week. Unfortunately they didn't manage it and we are Conference bound again!

Three elements came together to condemn us to Conference football today: A Strange Formation, Diabolical Refereeing and Disastrous Defending.

How appropriate that we go to the part of the country that has the most famous safecracker in recent history, and get robbed!

Or did the players take the minute's silence for the Queen Mother too far, and lay down and die, as we have witnessed at so many away games this season?

For some reason Mr Redfearn decided to play 3-4-3! Our three pronged attack failed to trouble the Darlo defence, as the combined height of our 3 striker's probably wouldn't add up to the height of Peter Crouch!

The writing was on the wall in the first five minutes as Darlington started brightly, and was probably compounded when Richardson made a poor save from a weak shot, and, as he was about to collect the ball after parrying it, Mitchell ran in and virtually kicked it from his hands and out for a corner.

Darlington's early pressure continued and they took the lead in the 9th minute after the Halifax defence had done their impression of the parting of the waves, Ian Clark ran into the area and stroked the Quakers in front.

The Shaymen's misery deepened in the 15th minute when referee Mr. Cooper made the worst decision in football history since Maradonna's infamous "hand of God" goal in 1986, and sent Matt Clarke off for deliberate handball when he was laying on the floor with his back to both referee and linesman so neither could even see if he handled it!?

Ian Clark stepped up and slotted the penalty into the bottom right hand corner as Richardson went the wrong way, but the referee then decided that there was an infringement at the taking of the penalty and ordered Clark to retake it, which he did, smashing the ball straight down the middle. Maybe that was an admission that he may have got the sending off wrong?

As you can imagine with us being 2 goals and 1 man down within 15 minutes, our efforts on goal were few and far between for the remainder of the half, as Darlo continued to knock it around and make their man advantage tell.

Unfortunately the second half descended into a performance resembling an English Cricket Team batting collapse, as every attack we had that broke down just turned into a counter attack for Darlo, resulting in 3 more soft goals for the home team. Conlon got the third on the hour mark, Ford added another on 64 with the aid of a Russian linesman, and Sheeran completed the rout with a looping header on 89 minutes.

So there you have it, consecutive 5-0 away defeats, and with Bristol Rovers last minute winner at home against 8 man (yes you read it right) Kidderminster, we are now relegated.

Myself and my brother Cuth are very upset, but in a funny way, looking forward to the Conference next season. Lets hope we can finish this one with 3 straight wins to take some form into next season.