The departure from Darlington of Gary Brown and Leon Scott at the weekend marks the end of an era, two players leaving the club who had both played on the opening day of the Northern League season in 2012-13. Craig Stoddart looks back on the contribution both made to Quakers over the past six years

GARY BROWN started Darlington’s final fixture of the season at Stockport County a week ago, a meaningless match with little at stake, yet he gave the game his all, as usual playing the match as though it was his last. And sadly it turns out that this time it really was his last for Quakers.

It is the end of an era as Brown is leaving, and so too is fellow stalwart Leon Scott, two heroes of the post-2012 era saying goodbye with their heads held high.

Both used social media at the weekend to announce their respective departures, Brown admitting he had “cried a lot of tears” and Scott saying it was “time for a new chapter”.

They’ve been part of a chapter that will be remembered fondly by Darlington supporters. Brown, an uncomplicated old-school centre-half, and Scott, a ball-winning central midfielder, both are leaders, and both have made a huge contribution to the club’s rise since the summer of 2012, giving their all in 408 appearances combined and helping the team to three promotions.

Statistics alone, however, cannot convey how they earned their place in Quakers folklore.

It is characters such as these, local lads with full-time jobs, that enable supporters to identity with their club, to form a bond with players who clearly appreciated playing for the team.

In 2015 Brown said: “I’ve loved playing for Darlington. I’d wake up in the morning and think ‘I’m a Darlington footballer’, and that’s been every day for three years.”

Brown also infamously once referred to himself as “just a raggy-arsed heating engineer from Brandon”, while Scott’s day job when he first joined the club involved taking care of young adults in Middlesbrough with autism and down’s syndrome.

He has since had a significant change of career, becoming a model which means jetting around the world to be photographed, but he has turned down lucrative jobs in the past to enable him to play for Darlington.

They were among Martin Gray’s first signings and played in the opening game of the Northern League season when Quakers beat Bishop Auckland 3-1 at Heritage Park.

It was a new experience for the fans as they watched a brand new set of players playing in an unfamiliar venue against opposition most had only seen before in pre-season friendlies.

Brown started the game and was captain while Scott came off the bench. They are the last men standing.

Their team-mates that day have all since fallen by the wayside – current Darlington players Stephen Thompson and Terry Galbraith joined later that season - as have all of the backroom staff and club officials.

Brown and Scott remaining acted as reminder of how far Quakers have come since Gray built a squad from scratch during the summer of 2012.

Scott tells the story of meeting with Gray to discuss the possibility of signing for Darlington. “When I first met Martin at the Blue Bell in Middlesbrough he wanted to win the league straight away when he’d only signed six players at the time. I thought maybe he was underestimating the Northern League, but we won the title!”

The squad quickly evolved. Of Gray’s preferred XI by the season’s end, five arrived after August but Scott and Brown were among the first names on the team sheet, making over 40 appearances each with Darlington winning the Northern League title with a record points total.

It was also a record for Scott in terms of goals – ten of his 20 for Darlington came in 2012-13, proving that he had other attributes as well as being primarily relied upon to be a disruptive influence in midfield.

“I’ve got my role, I get told what to do and every time I’m out there I give 110 per cent,” he said in 2015. “I do the best I can. I try to tackle and break things up and move the ball on. I keep my game basic and let the players further forward do the business.”

At his best he was so effective in this abrasive role, one easily underestimated. It says something for Scott’s influence that just with just 16 seconds gone of the play-off semi-final at the end of the 2013-14 season Ramsbottom United’s Owen Roberts took Scott out of the contest with a high lunge.

It was the 2013-14 season that Brown missed most of after rupturing three ankle ligaments against Gateshead, coming off second best after going in hard on Marcus Maddison in the final minute of the pre-season friendly. Sometimes he was too committed for his own good.

“People have asked me why, but I’m the same from kick-off until the final whistle goes. I don’t clock-watch,” he said at the time.

Brown was fully fit for the beginning of 2014-15 when he often played at right-back – Alan White and Chris Hunter being the preferred centre-back pairing – and it was from this position he fired over two pinpoint crosses for Graeme Armstrong to score both goals in a 2-0 early-season win at Spennymoor Town.

At the end of the season Darlington would overcome Spennymoor in the play-off semi-final, Scott and Brown both playing in a dramatic 3-2 victory, and in the final Quakers beat Bamber Bridge 2-0 to win promotion number two.

Number three would come 12 months later, but only after Brown’s November return.

He’d left at the beginning of 2015-16, but soon returned from Shildon having regretted the decision and immediately added stability to the defence – keeping five clean sheets in his first eight league appearances - and so began the formidable B&B centre-back partnership with Kevin Burgess.

They were bedrock of the Northern Premier League title win, Quakers pipping Blyth Spartans to the post and sealing the title with the incredible 7-1 win at Whitby when Scott was on the scoresheet.

His previous goal was a couple of months earlier - a late equaliser at home to Salford, a game Quakers went on to win 3-2 with Liam Hardy scoring in the final minute, while - during a season in which he was not in the starting line-up much in the opening months. After some poor results, he was recalled in October to play alongside new signing Phil Turnbull and the pair performed in tandem, like silk and steel in midfield, for the remainder of the campaign.

The strike at Whitby was Quakers' last goal that night and also the 20th and final time Scott scored for Darlington.

Promotion to the National League North brought about another rise in standards, another test of ability to compete at the next level.

Questions would be asked of each of Darlington’s players from the Northern League season after each promotion - would they cope at the level above? Are they good enough?

Scott answered those questions each season, stepping up to the task, but since the beginning of 2016-17 opportunities in his favoured midfield spot decreased – he did not start a game in his preferred position between March 2017 and January this year, instead he’d fill in elsewhere or be used as substitute.

He feels he should have been given more chances in midfield, and it is cruelly ironic that twice in Tommy Wright’s tenure he was due to start matches in the position only for Darlington to suffer a postponement each time.

Brown did not miss many matches last season, again playing alongside Burgess, and he began the current campaign in the starting XI too, but suffered concussion in August and it was months before he could return, by which point Wright had replaced Gray as manager.

Between Gray going and Wright’s arrival, Brown had been in caretaker charge for three matches in October with Phil Turnbull, and he relished the challenge.

Wright selected Brown in 11 successive matches from November-January, the final one seeing him substituted at Leamington, again due to a concussion issue. Darlington rejigged the team, Galbraith moved to the centre of defence alongside the emerging talent of Josh Heaton, Quakers won 3-2 and they have not looked back.

Time moves on. The end comes for every player at some point. Marco Gabbiadini, Craig Liddle, Graeme Armstrong, Nathan Cartman et al all have been loved and lost. It’s the cyclical nature of football and while there is not always room for sentiment in football in this case there should be.

Hopefully Brown and Scott will play in Quakers' friendly against a Premier League XI on July 29 at Blackwell, which would give them the send-off that these two Darlington heroes deserve.