Dave Penney this week became manager at Oldham after leaving Darlington where he came so close to promotion. Assistant Sports Editor Craig Stoddart takes a look at his Quakers reign.

WITH Darlington deep in a financial mire and their season limping to a desperately disappointing finish, Dave Penney’s exit as manager has surprised few in football.

With only today’s game at Chester to play, the timing of his departure has raised some eyebrows, particularly with tomorrow’s fundraising game still to come.

But those who have monitored the ambitious 44- year-old’s two-and-a-half-year tenure have long expected Penney would move on sooner rather than later.

Those who recall his first interview as Darlington manager will know that, to Penney, Quakers were only ever a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

On his first day as Darlington boss – on October 30, 2006 – he said: “I didn’t want to go to a club which was struggling at the bottom or a club that had no ambition, and that was why I’ve come here.

“There is a fantastic structure here. People behind the scenes are ambitious and I’m ambitious. I have two promotions on my CV and I would like a couple more here.”

A curriculum vitae is only required when hoping to secure a job. That, on his very first day at Darlington, Penney mentioned improving his CV gave a revealing insight.

But there were two sides to such an admission, as Penney would only become a wanted man if he achieved something with Quakers.

He had already achieved success at Doncaster, so another promotion at Darlington, where he would be aided by a big budget, would catapult him into the plans of a bigger club with more ambition.

A Huddersfield, a Barnsley or even a Leeds, if he was lucky, would all have suited Penney as he aimed to continue his ascent up the Football League ladder which started in style.

IT was in 2002 at Doncaster Rovers, where his playing days had ended, that Penney was first handed the managerial reins and, fortuitously, it happened at the same time as chairman John Ryan began throwing money at what was then an ailing south Yorkshire outfit.

That meant a big budget, and soon Rovers returned to the Football League. Twelve months later came the Division Three title. Two promotions make impressive reading on anyone’s CV, particularly a young manager taking his first steps in the job.

In League One he then delivered Doncaster’s highest finish in 50 years and, at the lower levels at least, Penney began to be highly thought of.

National exposure came with success in the League Cup. He took Doncaster to the quarter-finals, with shock wins over Aston Villa and Man City en route. Arsenal only scraped into the semifinals thanks to penalty shoot-out at a packed Belle Vue.

After a falling out with Ryan, Penney suddenly left Doncaster shortly after the 2006/07 season had begun and, shortly afterwards, he arrived at Darlington.

HIS signature was a huge coup for chief executive Jon Sotnick and chairman George Houghton, whose grand ideas and promise of a big budget had convinced Penney to take the job.

Martin Gray, who had been joint caretaker with Neil Maddison, became assistant to Penney, who started in style, winning his first six matches.

He spent much of his first season team building, tearing apart the squad built by predecessor David Hodgson.

Arrivals included some of the old reliables from his Doncaster days in the shape of Mark Albrighton, Tim Ryan, Ricky Ravenhill and Gregg Blundell.

All jumped at the chance of playing under Penney again and all held a strong work ethic. Such characteristics proved to be prominent throughout the squad Penney built.

No more so was that dedication embodied than in the shape of Steve Foster. The man who captained Doncaster in each of Penney’s two promotions in south Yorkshire, he arrived ahead of the 2007/08 season as the manager really began stamping his authority on the club.

With the aid of Hougton’s generous budget, Foster was one of a clutch of impressive arrivals, with Neil Austin, Alan White, Rob Purdie and Pawel Abbott among those who joined Penney for his first full season at Darlington.

Promotion was clearly the aim.

Initially the season went well and when placed third in mid-March, a first promotion since 1991 was within sight.

Then a sudden torrent of costly injuries saw Quakers nosedive, winning only two of their last 12 games as they stumbled into the play-offs.

There they met Rochdale, the division’s other long-term tenants, and Quakers won a dramatic first leg at the Arena 2-1 thanks to a late, late Ian Miller header. Wembley, and League One, beckoned.

But seven days later Dale reversed the scores, penalties were required and the promotion dream died when Jason Kennedy, scorer of a stunning goal in the first leg, saw his kick saved.

There were tears at Spotland that day. It was a heartbreaking way to end a season that, like many others at Darlington, had promised so much.

Having just missed out on promotion in 1996 and in 2000, as well as being narrowly pipped to the play-offs in recent years, yet again Darlington had failed to deliver.

AT Spotland immediately afterwards, while those all around him dwelt on what could have been, Penney was his usual calm and dignified self. No ranting and raving, no blaming everyone else but himself.

Although clearly disappointed, Penney was as measured as ever and simply vowed to try to win promotion the next season.

That relaxed demeanour was typical of his approach.

It’s a trait that has endeared him to his squad, helped to gain their respect and, in turn, garnered a willingness for players to want to do well for him.

This partly explains how he was able to maintain a tight bond between the squad during the recent troubled times.

Although, in theory, Penney’s second attempt at winning Darlington promotion ended only recently, when it became mathematically impossible to finish in the top seven, those hopes actually died on February 25 – the day Houghton placed the club into administration.

Houghton’s move came as a complete shock and it derailed Darlington with immediate effect. The tenpoint deduction saw them tumble down he table, they lost loan players and were unable to bolster a squad facing a backlog of games due to postponements.

Furthermore, players and club staff were only being paid a fraction of their wages.

It was a major blow, the second Houghton handed Penney. Having vowed to give promotion another shot in the immediate aftermath of that penalty shoot-out defeat to Rochdale, soon after Houghton severely cut Penney’s budget.

That meant losing nine players last summer and new arrivals came in the form of Stockport rejects Adam Griffin, David Poole and Adam Proudlock.

But Penney demonstrated resourcefulness by using the loan market effectively, bringing in the likes of Simon Brown, Billy Clarke, Liam Hatch and Danny Carlton.

And with the bulk of last season’s play-offs squad still together, Quakers were on course for the promotion that Penney had talked of at the beginning of his reign.

Then Houghton pulled the plug.

ALTHOUGH he stayed with the club until, almost, the end of the season, Penney’s thoughts began to turn elsewhere. He could not see a future for himself with Quakers and was due to resign in just over a week’s time. But then League One Oldham came knocking – perfect for Penney. A bigger club in a higher division, the logical step for an ambitious manager – especially one that had not been paid of late.

Although dedicated to achieving promotion with Darlington, Penney’s personal ambition had always remained evident and he occasionally expressed puzzlement at the managerial merry-go-round.

A case in point was when Paul Ince, before his success with MK Dons, was linked with the then vacant Derby job. Ince’s 53 England caps and a top-flight playing career were enough to put him in the frame, whereas Penney’s achievements in management were not!

Penney was similarly dismissive when Ince got the Blackburn job, and when the inexperienced Lee Clark was made Huddersfield manager.

Not that you will have ever read such opinions as these were always made off the record when he dealt with the North-East media.

Ahead of a weekly press conference during one week in January, on overhearing a conversation between local hacks discussing the dubious circumstances under which a match at Accrington had been postponed, Penney interjected with: “Waterlogged pitch, my arse.” So the issue became the press conference’s first question, at which point Penney climbed on the nearest fence and said words to the effect of ‘these things happen’.

Vintage Penney, never one to cause controversy.

Furthermore, little information on team selection was offered and even less on transfer news as Penney was always guarded, keen to keep his cards not just close to his chest, but folded in half and kept in his back pocket.

Although amiable and friendly, he never sought to gain the media’s seal of approval. He did not need any plaudits, he preferred to let results speak for themselves.

Six points off the play-offs in his ‘team building’ first season, a play-offs defeat in his second and then administration wrecked what would surely have been a promotion in the third.

Through little fault of his own, the Penney era will always be filed under the heading ‘what could have been’.