Football: Barnard caps Quakers' revival

ONLY 5,059 souls were there to witness it, but the Quakers' revival at the Riverside Stadium last night was quite an occasion to behold.

Darlington were 2-0 down and seemingly out of the FA Cup until the final 10 minutes of a dramatic first-round tie played at Middlesbrough because of drainage problems at Feethams. By the final whistle it was the leakage in the Burnley defence that decided the game.

The turning point proved to be the departure of Andy Payton in the 72nd minute. The Burnley striker was sent off for fouling Darlington's goalkeeper, David Preece, his second bookable offence.

Until then, Payton had been the difference between the teams. He opened the scoring in the 37th minute, slotting a side-footed shot past Preece after Phil Eastwood's pass had caught the home side playing central defensive statues. He then claimed a second goal from the penalty spot in the 54th minute after crashing to the ground under a challenge from Craig Liddle.

As a former Middlesbrough player, Payton was enjoying a happy return to Teesside. Ultimately, however, it was another Boro old boy who was celebrating - the Darlington manager David Hodgson.

Taking advantage of the numerical advantage Payton's dismissal afforded them, Hodgson's players chased their seemingly lost cause with absolute conviction. They found their reward, too.

With 10 minutes remaining Brian Reid pushed Glen Naylor and Brian Atkinson, an FA Cup finalist with Sunderland in 1992, beat the debutant Frank Kval from the penalty spot. Then, in the 86th minute, the Austrian, Mario Dorner, turned and fired the equaliser from 10 yards out.

A replay would have been bad enough for Burnley but, in the second minute of injury time, the prospect of a second-round home tie against Manchester City disappeared from their view, Mark Barnard side-footing a dramatic winner for Darlington - his first goal for two-and-a-half years.

It was too much for Stan Ternent to take. The Burnley manager departed casting clouds over his future at Turf Moor. "I feel suicidal," he said. "I'm going to go away and have a long, hard think about things.

"I'm good at what I do for a living but I look at what happened tonight and I feel embarrassed. Some of those players are not fit to play park football."

He was less than pleased with the Darlington goalkeeper as well. "I think the players - they're in the same unions, they earn a living in the same sport - are cheating each other. That is a fact."

Hodgson, however, thought the dismissal was justified and with a live televised tie in the next round, Sky is the limit for Darlington and their manager.

Darlington (3-5-2): Preece; Tutill, Bennett (Dorner, 57), Liddle; Reed, Gaughan, Atkinson (Leach, 82), Naylor; Gabbiadini, Roberts (Oliver, 66). Substitutes not used: Brumwell, Samways (gk).

Burnley (3-5-2): Kval; Heywood, Reid, Brass; Scott, Vindheim, Ford, Morgan, Eastwood; Payton, Little. Substitutes not used: Henderson, Carr-Lawton, Deveney, Maylett, Mawson (gk).

Referee: B Coddington (Sheffield).