Match Preview - Darlington Town (A) - Ebac Northern League Division 2 - Wednesday 25th March 2026 - Kick-Off 20:00pm

by Jeff King

A late night trip to Darlington Town awaits Park View AFC on Wednesday night as the play-off hopefuls make the journey to take on a very solid Town side in another crucial encounter.

Both teams have four games left and it is certainly Park View that are in greater need of a win and three points to maintain their current spot in the play-off places.

Saturday's 2-0 win over Newcastle University took them five points clear of both sixth placed FC Hartlepool and seventh placed Chester-le-Street Town. Both of those do though have games in hand on Park View.

Park View have 69 points from 38 games with 20 wins 9 draws and 9 defeats. They have scored 53 goals and conceded 30. Their platform to the play-offs being built on a defence that has now achieved 20 clean sheets in the league.

Their current form sees them having only one defeat in their last six games although there have also been three draws as well as two wins in that time. Top scorer for Park View is Stephen Siyanbola with 12 and Charlie Loveday has 7.

Last Saturday they had a very good all-round performance at home against Newcastle University who had been in great form coming into the game. Teenage forwards Zac Boddy and Niall Armstrong with the goals.

On the same day Darlington Town were demolishing Boldon CA 6-1 with hat-tricks from James Beauchamp and Connor Woodford. The same Boldon side that Park View had failed to score against in midweek.

That took Darlington's record to 54 points from 38 games with 16 wins 6 draws and 16 defeats. They have scored 55 goals and conceded 52. It leaves them very comfortably placed in eleventh place in the table.

Top scorer for Town is Reece Brown with 9 goals netted and Beauchamp's hat-trick last Saturday took him to 8 league goals for the season. Their current form has seen them see-saw between 3 wins and 3 losses in their last 6 games.

The two sides met at The Riverside back on the 24th of October last year and Town came away from that encounter with all three points after a Brandon Mallaburn goal gave them a 1-0 win.

Park View need at the very least to reverse that score line. The pressure is on them as they need the points. But Darlington are a well organised outfit that can play with a freedom of knowing they have nothing to lose.

Kick-off at the Eastbourne Community Stadium is at a later than normal midweek time of 8:00pm for what should be a very intriguing game.