Darlington F.C.
association football club in Darlington, England

Darlington Football Club is an association football club based in Darlington, County Durham, England. As of the 2025–26 season, the team competes in the National League North, at the sixth level of English football.
The club was founded in 1883, and played its matches at Feethams. The club originally played in regionally organised leagues, and was one of the founding members of the Northern League in 1889. They were first admitted to the Football League when the Third Division North was formed in 1921. They won the Third Division North title in 1925, and their 15th place in the Second Division in 1926 remains their highest ever league finish. After their admission to the League, they spent most of their history in the bottom tier. They won the Third Division North Cup in 1934, their first victory in nationally organised cup competition. They reached the last 16 of the FA Cup twice, and the quarter-final of the League Cup once, in 1968. In the early 1990s they won successive titles, in the Conference National in 1990 and the Fourth Division in 1991.
The public source identifies “Darlington F.C.” as association football club in Darlington, England. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Darlington, association and football.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q909189. Authority coordinates are 54.509, -1.564. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2025, 1883, 1889 and 1921.
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This entry incorporates text from “Darlington F.C.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.