It was 20 years ago today. November

Part 4 of my look back at Darlington's 1990/91 season.  Click here for August, September and October.

Darlo entered November riding high in the standings, and their first game was away at Rochdale, Mark Burke's loan was over, and with Steve Mardenborough still covering for Les McJannett, that meant a return to the lineup for Paul Emson, who didn't really do much, and an own goal meant we got a 1-1 draw, marred by an injury to Frank Gray.  Next up was a trip back to the non league, at Barrow, for the GM Vauxhall Shield, the non league version of the Charity Shield, a trophy Darlington won handily 4-0, with goals from Mardenborough, Andy Toman and 2 from John Borthwick.

This was followed by the first meeting of the season with Hartlepool, with our highest crowd of the season, 5,713 on hand to watch what turned out to be a frustrating game.  Darlo didn't play a great game, and missed a few chances before the ugliest man in football, the man who made Peter Beardsley look good, Joe Allon, scored the only goal of the game.  I may be getting games and seasons mixed up here, but I think it was from a corner in front of the Tin Shed, he'd been getting abuse all game, and he pointed to the goal, saying he was going to head it in, right before he did.

The next week was the first round of the FA cup.  With memories of last years run to a third round replay and the injustice of Archie Stephens' disallowed goal fresh in our minds, another big crowd came out for our home game against York City.  Gary Gill scored our goal in a 1-1 draw that I don't remember at all.  This game saw the return of Frank Gray from injury, and was also the last game that David Corner started for us.  The replay was 3 days later, and marked the first time in the starting line up for up and coming youth player Lee Ellison, though he couldn't inspire us as it ended 1-0 to York and that was that for our FA cup hopes for another year. 

Getting back to the league was just what Darlo needed, a makeshift defence including Emson and Drew Coverdale not stopping us from getting a 3-0 away win at Lincoln, Ellison getting the start again, and scoring his first goal.  Kevan Smith also scored, as did Gary Gill from the penalty spot.

The last game of the month saw us playing another cup tie against bloody York, this time in the group stage of the Leyland Daf trophy, where another defender picked up an injury, this time Les McJannett, and 2 goals from Borthwick couldn't stop us going down to a 3-2 defeat.

The day before that game though, saw Feethams host an FA youth cup 2nd round game against Manchester United, with the big attraction being some 16 year old kid called Ryan Giggs, who was apparently going to be the next George Best.  This was the only youth team game I ever went to and also the only game I watched from the East stand paddock and Giggs definitely looked good, scoring 5 goals in a 6-0 win, but check out the rest of the Man Utd line-up, under Ferguson, you'd think there'd be some good kids there, well here they are, at least here's who's listed on the programme.  Ian Wilkinson, Alan McReavie, Leslie Pottts, Mark Gordon, James Shields, John Sharples, Adrian Doherty, Peter Smyth, Colin McKee, Simon Davies, and Marcus Barmeld and John Okane on the bench.  Not exactly household names.  Darlo's team that day included Sean Gregan, as well as a few players who made the grade at Darlo's level, Anthony Isaacs, Simon Shaw and Lee Ellison.

As always, feel free to add your own memories in the comments section to fill in the gaps.

Coming up:  December, including Grimsby Town players fighting themselves.