DEDICATED followers of Darlington Football Club braved the rain to snap up the first available season tickets.
Queues formed despite the showers on Saturday morning at the Quakers' new stadium off thw town's Neasham Road.
They prompted chairman George Reynolds to declare that the club would have up to 5,000 season ticket holders by the start of the new season, in August.
"I reckon we will do about 4,000 or 5,000 season tickets - and people try to tell me that new stadiums can't do it," he said on Saturday.
"I came in at about 7.20am and we weren't open until 10am, but there was already a queue of about 60 then.
"We're getting people from Richmond, Northallerton, Barnard Castle and Middlesbrough. There were even 12 from Sunderland - it's been a real success story."
Mr Reynolds insisted that the multi-million pound arena could attract football supporters from throughout the North-East and North Yorkshire
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