THE last few months of a football stadium's life are to be captured on film for posterity.

Darlington Football Club's Feethams ground is to close next year when the team moves to a new stadium in Neasham Road.

To commemorate the club's final few months at Feethams, Darlington Camera Club has been commissioned to capture some poignant moments.

The Darlington Football Supporters' Club asked members of the Darlington Media Centre and the town's camera club to create an exhibition to mark the stadium's closure.

The final exhibition, called Farewell to Feethams, will be on show at Darlington Arts Centre between June and August.

Dr Jim Lycett, chairman of the camera club, said: "It is quite an intensive project over a short period of time.

"The gates at the club shut in April and so we have until then to get 40 exhibition quality images."

Dr Lycett has been involved with the camera club for about eight years but has been an avid photographer since the 1950s.

He has a darkroom at his Darlington home, as well as room set aside for processing images from his digital camera.

Much of his work portrays Darlington, where Dr Lycett has spent most of his life.

He said: "Darlington is a beautiful place with a lot of natural beauty which can be captured and recorded on film.

"People often don't see it as attractive because they don't look at it with a narrow vision and see the artistic potential in small things in nature."

Some of these natural images, such as a chestnut tree in Stanhope Park and ducks in South Park, were chosen by Darlington Borough Council to illustrate its 2002 calendar.

Twelve of Dr Lycett's monochrome images appear in the calendar, on sale at the tourist information centre.