Manager of the Week: Steve Watson

Darlington manager steve watson wins manager of the week from the vanarama national league north. His team darlington have been on top form recently, winning back to back wins. In the past weeks darlington have won three games in a row and seem to be improving under their latest manager and coaching staff.

Steve Watson joined Darlington Football club on december the 31st. When it comes to his past experience as a manger he has a rather large amount, especially in similar divisions. Previously he has managed teams including Gateshead, York City FC and most recently Chester. In addition to this he has also had time coaching at Macclesfield and Birmingham. Before arriving at Darlington he coached at Newcastle United Academy. His boyhood time where he played and made the most appearances in his career. Throughout his time as a professional footballer he made an overall total of 557 appearances in which he scored a total of 38 goals. The goals he scored were spread out across teams including Aston Villa, West Bromwich, Newcastle united and Sheffield Wednesday. During his time at Premier league club Newcastle he played in huge tournaments including premier league, champions league, cup winners cup and the UEFA cup. 

In the last couple of weeks Darlington has won three games back to back. Their losing rivals include: Curzon Ashton, Buxton FC and Banbury FC. Their first win was against Buxton FC where we won 2-1. For darlington, our goal scorers were Mitchell Curry who scored at The 69th minute and Andrew nelson. For buxton was scott barrow scored at 34 minutes which was an own goal. Before the club appointed current manager Steve Watson, they had little to no wins from this season of 2023/23. Steve Watson has proved so far to be a confident manager who can lead the team to victory in consecutive games, which is exactly what Darlington needed.

On Tuesday the 27th darlington travelled away to Curzon Ashton where they beat the home team 3-1. Curzon Ashton are currently 7th in the table a whole 15 places above us in the league table. Darlington had three different goals scorers for this game which included Will Hatfield, Andrew Nelson and Toby Lees. With Curzon being significantly higher in the table it was against the odds that we could win against them however Darlington showed to be the bigger team. This is Steve Watsons second win in a row now as manager at Darlington.

For the. clubs third win they managed to beat Banbury at home. With a full Blackwell meadows darlington came to victory beating the visitors 3-1. Darlington took the lead first with Matthew Cornish scoring the first goal at 33 minutes. The was an unlikely goal by Banbury's Aiden Elliott-Wheeler. The 17 year old took a shot from outside the box where the ball unfortunately slipped past keeper Matty young. The second goal was a penalty which was initially saved by Banbury's keeper however a rebound shot gave Darlo a second lead. The final goal was scored by Darlington's Cameron Salkeld in the 90+2 minute.