Down below, and 54,000 reasons to worry

SOCCER ANGLES:In a fascinating week, when the Continent's elite danced and battled from Milan to London to Madrid, Darlington also played on Tuesday

FIFTY-FOUR grand a week. Somehow, somewhere over the Premier and Champions League rainbow, that tidy sum’s power and significance got lost. We became familiar with it.

It is not the norm, maybe 10 per cent of the Premier League’s 350 legitimate first-team contenders receive that sort of pay-packet, but nor is it unheard of. Far from it, there are some earning double, and who knows what Cristiano Ronaldo or Robinho pull in once appearance fees, goal fees, win bonuses, loyalty clauses and the rest are factored in to their “basic”.

In a fascinating week, when the Continent’s elite footballers danced and battled from Milan to London to Madrid, the sum of 54,000 – sterling or euro, it doesn’t matter, just think of it in notes – may not be an obvious figure to dwell on. But, just in case you didn’t notice, Darlington also played on Tuesday night.

In Milan, 80,000 were cloaked in the San Siro’s evocative mist watching European football so compelling you could smell it; in Darlington, 2,858 were present to see the hosts lose to Rochdale in a League Two match you could also smell.

It is not new to say that Inter Milan-Manchester United against Darlington-Rochdale is an unfair fight, but it has been worth repeating this week.

On Tuesday night, as the Champions League theme blared across the expectant in Milan, in Darlington for the first time the local paper’s sponsorship of the stadium kicked in. This is now the Northern Echo Darlington Arena, but unfortunately for both parties by midnight the Northern Echo were reporting a most unhappy coincidence: Darlington were to be placed in administration on Wednesday.

Sure enough, on Wednesday at 3pm – kick-off time – the announcement came. By 3.40 the Football League had docked Darlington the mandatory 10 points. Darlington owner George Houghton came out to say that Darlington lose 54 grand a week!

The suddenness of this story and our familiarity with extravagance meant that for a few hours the scale of Darlington losing 54 thousand a week was misplaced. After all, Darlington’s neighbours Middlesbrough had an FA Cup replay against West Ham that night, and didn’t the Boro midfielder Gary O’Neil get his Ferrari nicked on Monday?

Gary O’Neil. Ferrari.

Liverpool, moreover, were on the TV at Real Madrid, so if the wider world of football was looking the other way, who could blame them? And have Darlington not been in administration before, and are their colleagues in League Two, Luton and Rotherham, not in that state now? The division has not imploded, so why the fuss?

Here’s why: Houghton has been the owner of Darlington for the past three years. He would not be the first businessman to enter football at this level and wonder later why he had done so.

Houghton may even admit to mistakes that are particular to Darlington: the building of a new, white elephant 27,000-seater stadium by the previous owner for a club that has spent the bulk of its last 80 years in England’s fourth division; the decision not to turn on the undersoil heating for the original Rochdale game that was postponed in December; 13 managers in 20 years.

But when Houghton spoke in broader terms, he talked of conversations with fellow chairmen and owners in Leagues One and Two and mentioned the possibility of another unhappy coincidence: the alignment of dwindling interest, declining revenue and the credit crunch.

“There are real problems in Leagues One and Two,” Houghton said. “A lot of chairmen are struggling with their own businesses and they can no longer put the money in.”

Anxious local businessmen such as Houghton now have the added difficulty of reluctant banks. In the past that has been one short-term answer to cashflow problems that have existed since football began. But loans, from owners or banks, are drying up. Darlington’s players were informed on Thursday that wages would not be in their accounts yesterday as scheduled.

At Houghton’s level, many clubs are run and owned by a single businessman. If his business suffers, the club suffers. This is heightened vulnerability.

The new reality being exposed was illustrated by Cheltenham Town’s decision 24 hours later to release Alan Fettis, their goalkeeping coach, who doubled as a scout. Two jobs. The reason: “Economic conditions.”

There is an expectation that Cheltenham, bottom of League One and preparing for relegation, will follow Darlington into administration. The Football League has a seasonal deadline – the fourth Thursday of March – for this to happen, otherwise the automatic 10-point deduction sanction applies to the next season.

That deadline is an explanation why at Darlington the whisper is of 10 clubs considering administration. Southampton would probably be the biggest, but the financial turmoil there is coinciding with a relegation battle from the Championship. Take the 10 points now and Southampton would certainly go down; gamble and then still go down and they would start next season on minus 10 points at least.

Darlington were founded in 1883. They are one of many clubs who decade after decade have defied the absence of success or popularity to stay alive, to play the game. Today they go to another, Exeter City, who were £5 million in debt six years ago but who benefited from that third-round FA Cup-tie at Old Trafford in 2005. Taking United to a replay meant several hundred thousand pounds to Exeter. Redistribution, it is called.

Exeter have played on and, 105 years from their foundation, are another example of the truly remarkable durability of this sort of club. Such defiance encourages wariness about the notion that, while at the top things are as shiny as Ronaldo’s boots, the bottom’s about to fall out of English football. But fear is fear. The Premier League has just signed a TV deal worth £1.8 billion over three seasons from 2011. Whether Darlington make it to then is debateable.

Thursday is not a night for football

SO UEFA have expressed their concern and disappointment that English clubs – Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur – fielded weakened teams in the Uefa Cup second legs on Thursday and both then exited the competition.

Sometimes the mind is boggled by such scintillating hypocrisy. Were it not for Uefa's expansion of the Champions League into a supertanker that crushes all in its way and its wake, then Aston Villa would not be treasuring a place in it more than the Uefa Cup trophy itself.

But Villa are a business and a football club. Being in the Champions League would not only bring more income their way, it would mean they could attract better players. It's a virtuous circle they are striving to enter.

It also means they would not be playing on Thursday nights. Doing so knocks domestic games back to Sunday and means more ruined Saturdays, more weeks lacking the game's natural rhythm.

Thursday is no night for true football. Which is why they don't ask the Champions League to be played on it.