Of all of the former footballers that will be playing on Sunday at Blackwell Meadows, none scored more goals than Marco Gabbiadini. He found the net throughout his lengthy career, which began at York City in the 1980s, ended almost 20 years later up the A19 at Hartlepool United and in between was a fans’ favourite at clubs across the country including Sunderland and Darlington. He spoke to Deputy Sports Editor Craig Stoddart about his Darlington days

HE turned 50 earlier this year, last played a game of football around 18 months ago and has had to venture into his shed to dust the cobwebs off his shooting boots, but Marco Gabbiadini he is ready to roll back the years when he plays in a one-off game on Sunday: Darlington v Premier League Legends.

“I do get asked to play in these sorts of games, I don’t play very much now,” he said. “I really appreciate being invited back, but if you were the front man for the Rolling Stones you can keep making comebacks no matter how old you are, you can keep having paydays, but as a footballer you’re not as fit as you used to be, you’re not as quick and it takes a long time to recover!”

He will be turning out for the Premier League XI at Blackwell Meadows, which is part of the prize Quakers won, as well as £20,000, in a competition to reward the best goal celebration in non-league.

A clip of the charismatic Reece Styche jumping into a mound of snow after scoring in January against Chorley won the competition, ran by Marathon Bet, who have amassed a selection of well-known former Premier League players for tomorrow.

The most high-profile are Chris Waddle, Jay-Jay Okocha and Kieron Dyer, and while Gabbiadini played in the top-flight for Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Derby, he remains popular with Darlington fans.

His goal celebrations may have been more restrained than Styche's, but they were more frequent. In two seasons with Quakers after joining in July 1998 he scored 52 times in 95 games.

The bustling striker with a low centre of gravity was all sharp turns and quick feet, barging past defenders to open up space for shooting opportunities.

When The Northern Echo last year asked readers to select their all-time Darlington XI he received more votes than any other nominated player.

This, despite having ended his career with Hartlepool United, a decision which tested Quakers’ supporters’ goodwill – more on that later - while his Darlington days ended on a sour note.

They lost to Peterborough United at Wembley in the 2000 play-off final - his last match in black and white – and he is perceived to have stormed back to the changing room while his team-mates remained on the pitch for a huddle.

It’s an issue he clarifies, saying: “The time before that I’d played at Wembley and lost we didn’t go up the steps, so I just went back to the dressing room.

“People thought I was really surly and shouldn’t have walked off, but when I got to the dressing room I was thinking ‘Where is everyone?’ I thought they were following me down the tunnel.”

He also threw his No. 10 shirt to a Darlington fan beside the Wembley tunnel. Gabbiadini added: “The shirt was probably symbolic because I didn’t want to be there. It wasn’t a problem with the club or the fans, George Reynolds had let me down a few times, but David Hodgson was an absolutely fantastic bloke to work with.”

Hodgson was the popular manager who’d spotted the 30-year-old play for York City’s reserves at the end of a tumultuous two years.

Starting with being on the fringes in the Premier League with Derby in 1996-97, there were loan spells which didn’t work out, injuries, a spell with Panionios in Greece where he wasn’t paid and then he “was offered a three-year deal by Stoke, but they reneged on it when they sacked the manger”.

In February 1998 he returned to York, where it had all began as an apprentice a decade earlier, but: “I did my ankle really badly in my first game. It was a disaster for me.

“I’d been used to playing every game for ten or 12 years, so to find yourself in that position was really tough. After Greece there was going to be a hearing with FIFA, my wife was pregnant and we already had three kids. When you look back you realise how hard it was.

“Two weeks after the end of the season York had reserve games that needed playing, and Hodgy saw me in one at Bradford City. I think he was surprised to see me, some people might’ve thought it was beneath them.

"I’d had a nightmare year, and the year before I’d not played much for Derby, so people must’ve thought I was finished.”

Finished? He was only just getting started at Darlington, though he told The Northern Echo at the time: “I know it is now make-or-break for me.

“I've had a really dismal year and now I'm looking forward to enjoying my football again. Hopefully I can score goals, provide opportunities for others and play a full part. I've got a feeling that Darlington will have a very good season.”

They did, by Darlington’s standards anyway, going top early on before falling away and finishing 11th, but along the way Gabbiadini netted in home and away wins over Pools and finished the 98-99 campaign with 24 goals in all competitions.

He says: “If I’m brutally honest I was disappointed to end up playing in the fourth tier after what I’d done at higher levels. I wanted to prove that I was better than that and I think I did.

“The other side of that is that I really enjoyed my time at Darlington. It was a great side, we played attacking football and Hodgy was a clever manager, he tried to get the best out of individuals. They got the ball to me in areas where I was dangerous, and that’s not always the case in some teams you play for.”

His 24 goal-haul was the highest by a Quaker in a single season since Bobby Cummings in 1965-66 when Darlington had been promoted, and promotion was certainly the aim in Gabbiadini's second season.

It was 1999-2000 and Reynolds had made his mark, his takeover having been revealed at the end of the previous season.

Hodgson brought in players from higher levels such as Andy Collett, Neil Aspin, Martin Gray, Neal Heaney and Lee Nogan to bolster a side already boasting experienced pros like Steve Tutill and Craig Liddle.

For all of Quakers’ quality and 28 Gabbiadini goals, however, they fell short. On course for promotion, they stumbled on the finishing straight, one win in 11 across March and April saw them overtaken by Northampton Town and slip into the play-offs. It was Devon Loch in football boots.

“It’s a shame we didn’t finish it off with a promotion," adds Gabbiadini. "The first year we probably weren’t in contention, but in the second year we didn’t manage to do it, and we had that sorry night at Wembley which was one of the worst nights of my whole career.

“I’m a big believer in going on a run, momentum, and we had our best run in the middle of the season, whereas Northampton had theirs right at the end.

“Maybe it was playing on that pitch at Feethams, maybe it was fatigue setting in. Our last few games were probably our worst of the season. Maybe that was down to me, maybe others should've stepped up to the plate, I don’t know the answer and it’s difficult to put your finger on it.”

The good times however, outweighed the bad.

“There was a lot of them!” he says, when asked to select his favourite goal. “It’s hard to put your finger on one. But I remember the Orient one from the edge of the box. I scored a couple at Torquay that were my 149th and 150th league goals, and at Plymouth I cut inside and bent one in the top corner. And I scored a hat-trick against Exeter when George Reynolds first turned up. Crazy times.”

Crazy indeed. Everyone connected to the club at the time has a Reynolds story to tell, and Gabbiadini says: “He liked to do things on his own terms, and tried to think he was clever. He was disrespectful to me and my wife a few times when we had made an effort to see him about a contract. He would cancel at the last minute. He probably did it to prove a point.

“I probably could’ve got a move in the first season if I’d tried harder, but I was happy to stay.

“In the second year he thought he had a clause which meant I had to stay for a third year, but he got that wrong. It was all a bit messy.”

Gabbiadini joined Northampton - of all the teams - and signed a three-year contract, scoring another 30 goals.

By the summer of 2003 he was had moved home to York and was a free agent but, again, of all the teams, Gabbiadini joined Hartlepool. He acknowledges it was not a popular decision in Darlington.

He explained: “I was training with Darlington after Mick Tait asked me. I’d had a knee operation, nothing serious, so I gave it a go and Mick wanted me to sign for a year which I was quite happy to do. But then it all started again with the chairman, Mick was trying to get a contract offer from him for me and nothing was coming.

“The physio from my time at Darlington, John Murray, was at Hartlepool by now. I was chatting to him, he said they didn’t realise I was fit, they’d heard I’d had an operation, and asked what was happening.

“I told him George was playing silly beggars, so I ended up signing for Hartlepool, which I know was seen was as doing the dirty on Darlington, but it was probably the other way around. George was messing about and for me it worked out because I was only going to play another year and with the travelling distance from home there weren’t many clubs who ticked the boxes.

“It was a shame that I didn’t get to come back, but it would’ve been difficult to sort out the way George was, and three years down the line after I’d left the club had been through a sticky time.”

It would get stickier. That summer Darlington moved to the Reynolds Arena but were in administration six months later, and by that stage Gabbiadini had played his last ever game.

Injury cut short his time at Hartlepool, a defeat at Plymouth in November 2003 being his 784th and final club appearance, scoring 274 goals in that time, his last coming in an FA Cup win over Whitby Town at Victoria Park.

Now running the Bishops Guest House in York with wife Deborah, Gabbiadini also works as a summariser on BBC Newcastle and will be following Sunderland in League One this season, but he keeps an eye on Darlington.

He added: "As players you’re only ever a custodian of the shirt, you’re not a supporter. The clubs I played for, I still think of them as my club but you’re still not really a supporter, and what the Darlington supporters went through was disgraceful. They were harshly dealt with at the start of it and it’s testament to their hardcore fans that the club is still moving forward.”

He adds: “I hope they remember the goals and I always gave my all for every club I played for."