Source: Northern_Echo
Cooper making Quakers’ changes
Darlington face Gateshead for the first time in half a century tomorrow and aim to use the occasion to kickstart their season.[LNB] They have won only one of their four Blue Square Bet Premier matches and put in a poor performance on Tuesday in a deserved 1-0 home defeat to Grimsby Town.[LNB] As a consequence manager Mark Cooper will wield the axe tomorrow. Richard Offiong and Josh Gray are most likely to be dropped, with teenage striker Michael Smith and midfielder Joe Clarke in contention to make their first starts of the season.[LNB] Right-back Paul Arnison is among those who will stay in the side, and he is adamant Quakers are better than their form suggests.[LNB] We know were better than we were on Tuesday, he said.[LNB] But it's alright saying that, we've got to go out and prove it to the people that come to watch us.[LNB] We're better than we showed on Tuesday and we've shown in the past that we're better than that. We've got to go out there and play with no fear, try and enjoy it.[LNB] There didn't seem to any life out there on Tuesday. We work hard in training, but especially in the first half there was nothing there.[LNB] We can't be just waiting for something to happen, we've got to go and make things happen.[LNB] But hopefully we're getting the bad performances out of the way now.'' Tomorrow's game represents the first league meeting between the clubs since 1959- 60, which was Gateshead's final season as a Football League club, although they did face each other in a 1963 Feethams FA Cup tie.[LNB] In the Gateshead squad will be a handful of players with Darlington connections, while striker Nathan Fisher says he used to be a regular at Feethams.[LNB] His Heed team-mates include defender Paul Heckingbottom, a crowd favourite during his three-year spell with Quakers which ended in 2002.[LNB] Fisher, 21, said I used to watch Hecky playing for Darlington when I was a bairn![LNB] Marco Gabbiadini was my favourite player and I also used to like watching Neil Wainwright go past players.[LNB] I only lived five minutes from Darlington and I have supported them all my life so to be involved on Saturday will be extra special for me.[LNB] Also in the visiting squad will be winger Craig Nelthorpe, on loan at Quakers in 2008, and James Marwood and Andy Ferrell who both had unsuccessful trials with Darlington in recent years.[LNB]
