Darlington RA manager Marty Clennett believes that newcomers Whitehaven Amateurs will do well in the Arngrove Northern League.

Clennett (pictured) took over at Brinkburn Road last October, and steadied the club after a rocky period in which they had been relegated from the First Division and had started 2007/08 badly.

Previously he had been with Wolviston, which is where he remembers about Whitehaven.

“I came across them a few times in my Wolviston days in the Wearside League. How they do in the Northern League will depend on how they’ll be able to cope with midweek away games, and getting players off work.

“Teams from this side of the Pennines will only go across there once a season, maybe twice for a cup game, but they’ll have to come over here at least once a fortnight.

“The trip over there can be quite long – we used to stop at Penrith for a break on the way over, but provided they cope with the journeys I think they will be fione.”

Clennett has told his Darlington players to report back to training next Saturday.

“There are about twelve potential new players I’ve got my eye on,” he said. “We’ve kept thirteen or fourteen players from last season, so hopefully we should have some competition for places and in turn we can do better next season.

 “The second division wasn’t as strong as I thought it would be last season, but what we lacked was the ability to play our best eleven regularly. We lost games by the odd goal several times, but that was because we had spells in a game in which we’d let a silly goal in.”

The RA are probably the first club to start pre-season training, and Clennett pointed out: “With a good pre-season and better preparation, then we will win more matches than we lose in the new season.”

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