Darlington Football Club is an English association football club founded in 1883 and based in the town of Darlington, County Durham. Its first team played in the Northern League from 1889 to 1908 and then in the North-Eastern League until becoming a member of the newly formed Football League Third Division North in 1921. They won that division's title in 1925, and their 15th place in the Second Division in 1926 remains their highest ever league finish, but most of their Football League history was spent in the bottom tier. The club lost its Football League status briefly in 1988 and again in 2010, since when the team has competed in non-league football.
The team's first success in a nationally organised cup competition came in the 1934 Third Division North Cup. 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 in 1990 and the Fourth Division in 1991. In 2011 they won the FA Trophy.