OVER the years there have been a few games where you sit listening to the radio and you begin to wonder whether what you’re hearing was actually happening. There was a Glen Naylor hat-trick at Colchester in 1997, three goals from Marco Gabbiadini at Brighton in March 1999, a random 3-0 win at Bristol Rovers. Let’s face it, recent years aside, more often than not, Darlo have travelled in hope rather than expectation and Saturday’s trip to Brackley fell firmly in the hope category. It’s fantastic when we blow all expectations out of the water and secure a really good win on the road.

Having decided to give the game a miss, I was reliant on Darlo Fans Radio to keep me up to date. Tuning in at about 3.10pm, I wasn’t expecting to discover the game had already been so eventful. Already 1-1, everything sounded rather frantic. Considering how dominant Brackley have been against us in recent fixtures, my initial thought was we’d scored too early. I was expecting to listen to wave after wave of home attacks with a plucky rearguard trying to keep one of the pre-season promotion favourites at bay. Instead, goal after goal went our way. Michael Cansfield performed an admirable solo commentary on the fans’ radio, but couldn’t hide his excitement no matter how hard he tried and I was bouncing on the couch as Darlington went 4-1 up before half-time.

The second Brackley goal early after half time had me on the edge of my seat for longer than I cared for, but what sounded like a brilliant team effort got us over the line. Having seen a marked improvement on the Curzon game at Spennymoor Town during midweek, there seemed to be a recurring theme in deepest, darkest Northamptonshire; everywhere the opposition were, Tom Elliott and Joe Wheatley were. Having seen just about every blade of grass at the Brewery Field on Tuesday, Michael’s commentary gave the strong impression that this was about a repeat performance from our dynamic midfield duo.

If we look beyond the opening day defeat against Curzon, it would appear our side is starting to settle down a bit. The opening day 4-3-3 has been cast aside following the return of our talisman Stephen Thompson and we’re back to what we know with 4-4-2. More importantly, there appears to be partnerships coming together nicely all over the pitch. Wheatley and Elliott already look like they’ve played together for years. Up front, Reece Styche and Simon Ainge appear to be working together nicely with six goals in three games. Down the right, Thompson and Luke Trotman have picked up where they were at the end of last season. We just need to settle on a centre half partnership and see how Ben O’Hanlon and Alex Henshall develop their relationship. With good, effective partnerships all over the pitch, we can begin to look tighter at the back and more threatening going forward. It is very early in the season but the signs are looking a bit more positive than they were at 5pm on the opening Saturday.

With the league looking a bit higgledy piggledy with surprising results all over the place, it would be great if we could carry all the positivity from the couple of away games in to our two fixtures this week against Blyth and Kidderminster. Both of our forthcoming opponents appear to have plenty of goals in them as well as being generous in defence. If we can show the same level of focus as we displayed for long periods at Spennymoor and Brackley, I fancy our chances of having a good week.