THE players gathered on the Blackwell Meadows balcony made for a forlorn sight after Darlington’s final home game of the season a fortnight ago.

Such scenes have been jubilant in recent years, Quakers celebrating promotion with silverware and champagne, but despite beating AFC Telford United 1-0 this was a subdued moment.

There was polite applause as supporters showed their appreciation for the players’ efforts at the end of a season in which they achieved their objective, yet fully aware they would not be allowed to take part in the play-offs, hence they looked like they had been relegated.

Not having enough covered seats is no way to miss out on a potential promotion, nine months graft wasted due to an administrative error.

The players could still be proud of their efforts, however, the newly-promoted team having competed at the top end of the division all season, never dropping below seventh and briefly going top early on.

First belonged to AFC Fylde, however, one of a handful of full-time clubs in a division more competitive than Quakers had been used to since 2012.

The step up was significant, as evidenced in matches against the lower ranked teams who would always give a good account of themselves, while clubs that Quakers had crossed paths with previously, such as Stockport, Kidderminster, Halifax and Boston, contributed to the sense of higher status.

So keeping the season alive until the bitter end was a huge achievement for a club which retained many of the same players from the promotions achieved in each of the previous two years.

Gary Brown, Terry Galbraith, Leon Scott and Stephen Thompson, all stalwarts of the Northern League season in 2012-13, played their part, as did Chris Hunter and Nathan Cartman in a year when many had feared the National League North represented too much, too soon, that mid-table mediocrity would suffice.

But manager Martin Gray is never one to settle for second best.

“If we were in the Premier League he’d think we could win it,” midfielder Phil Turnbull once said of the manager, whose team were top after five games.

Darlington spent the bulk of the season ensconced in the play-off zone, the high point being an unbeaten run during September and October that stretched to eight games, the last one being a resounding 4-1 success at Harrogate Town.

It remained the high water mark, their most fluid, one-sided performance, when Darlington dominated in front of a large travelling contingent who began to feel promotion might not be beyond their team.

New signing Dave Syers scored his third goal in his third game at Harrogate, and in the same match summer recruit Josh Gillies scored for the fourth time, an audacious attempt from a narrow angle.

The former Gateshead winger enjoyed an eye-catching start to the campaign, and a new contract quickly came his way, however, as the season wore on and the pitches became heavier Gillies was unable to influence games in the same manner.

Darlington’s form took a nosedive too, following the eight-game unbeaten run by not winning any of their next seven from the beginning of November until Boxing Day.

This period included two deeply disappointing early exits in the FA Trophy and FA Cup, therefore missing out on much-needed prizemoney A Trophy tie replay at Marine was the only game striker Mark Beck did not start – aside from the first game of the season when the summer signing was not eligible – which is a clear illustration of his value to the team.

He finished with 18 goals, and as he is out of contract uncertainty lingers over his future.

Beck bagged a unique double in December – scoring twice in the club’s final game at Heritage Park against Salford City, then adding another double in the first fixture in back in town, a 3-2 win over FC Halifax Town on Boxing Day.

A lot of work and money went into upgrading Blackwell Meadows, though for many it remains inferior to Heritage Park, where Darlington spent four and a half seasons as tenants of Bishop Auckland.

It took a while for Darlington to feel at home as tenants of Darlington Rugby Club, with grumblings of discontent due to the undisclosed share of the proft that the landlords make on food and drink on match days, while some find the lack of terracing an issue, making a view of the pitch difficult.

An uneven and bumpy pitch meant the players were similarly unenthused. They lost three of their first five games at the venue during an extended mid-season slump, Quakers dropping to seventh.

Between November and March – 16 games – Darlington failed to win back-to-back league fixtures.

However, they improved as the second half of the season went on, bolstered by the arrival of attacking left-back David Ferguson from Shildon, Beck’s goals and the return to form of midfield tyro Josh Falkingham.

The Yorkshire terrier added bite to midfield alongside the calm and composed Turnbull, who scored his first for the club in spectacular style, lashing home on the volley against Gloucester in January.

It made the shortlist for the club’s goal of the season vote, and there were no shortage of contenders, given that Quakers scored 89 times. Only Fylde were more prolific. But it was the number of goals conceded which proved to be team’s Achilles heal.

“That’s not what we’re about,” Gray would lament, but the statistics said otherwise.

No team in the top half conceded more, Quakers keeping only seven clean sheets, three of them after goalkeeper Adam Bartlett escaped Hartlepool United’s relegation battle.

Bartlett was Gray’s fourth goalkeeper of the season and, after making an unfortunate first impression – at fault at least once in a 3-3 draw at lowly Gainsborough on March 25 – he came good.

He was man of the match a week later at Fylde, preventing a 4-1 scoreline from becoming more humiliating. The result did not derail the team’s play-off hopes, as the board did that for them six days later.

That was when they relayed to Gray the bombshell revelation about the lack of covered seating, breaking the news at Blackwell Meadows the day before a win over Tamworth, after which the manager passionately declared: “Nobody at this club wants promotion more than me.”

Undeterred, the team went on to win four matches in succession, the first of which included a magnificent team goal against Tamworth that went viral online, but the fans were furious about the seating error.

Recriminations and resignations followed, so too did a heated fans’ forum. Richard Cook and Jonathan Jowett stepped down as directors leaving John Tempest as the last man standing, while Gray had a bombshell revelation of his own.

The manager announced he had been speaking to two potential investors and made it clear he feels Quakers have reached their ceiling as a fan-owned club.

Talks between an investor and the Darlington FC Supporters Group, who hold a majority shareholding, are ongoing, but the fanbase is split.

Many worry it’s a risk relying on an investor, while others subscribe to Gray’s way, believing it offers a quicker route back to the Football League, all of which leaves Quakers at a crossroads.