Darlington will be relegated tonight if they fail to win on what promises to be their final visit for the foreseeable future to familiar foes Rochdale.
Even a win may not be good enough for Simon Davey's side who are 21 points from safety with seven games to play. They need Cheltenham Town to lose all their remaining matches and Quaker to take maximum points from theirs.
Third-bottom Cheltenham face Shrewsbury this evening while Quakers will be hoping to replicate last season's result at Spotland.
Darlington won 2-0 at Rochdale 12 months ago under Dave Penney with their season fizzling out while Dale were preparing for the playoffs, but today Keith Hill's team will be expecting to clinch their first promotion since 1969.
They could have done it on Saturday but were stunned 5- 0 at Torquay. A large crowd will be in attendance tonight in anticipation of finally seeing Dale promoted having been marooned in the bottom tier of the Football League for 36 seasons longer than any other club.
For much of that time Spotland has been a regular port of call for Darlington with this evening representing their 18th visit in consecutive campaigns.
It's one of those situations we're bottom of the table and they're top where they could get a little bit nervy as they come towards the end of the season and are trying to get themselves over that finishing line, said Davey.
We've won at Burton and Shrewsbury and Rochdale lost 5-0 at Torquay. At this time of the season there seems to be some strange results.
Let's hope there's another one on Tuesday night.
We have to make sure that we compete. Straight away the first thing we need to be doing is getting a clean sheet and build on that. We got a clean sheet on Saturday and hopefully we can do the same on Tuesday and be a bit more clinical in the final third.
Davey concedes that the game will be a tough test of his players, who drew 0-0 at home to Accrington Stanley on Saturday and have lost only one of their last four away fixtures.
It's party time for Rochdale, he said. They're expecting to get promoted and expecting to beat us so it'll be a good crowd but what better place to test your players.
They are champions-elect, I'd look at my players and say that's what you've got to aspire to get out of this division, let alone the Conference.
Davey is likely to tinker with his side again as he seeks to see more of his squad in action, but defender Alan White is available after limping out of Saturday's game with a knee injury.
White, who played in the play-off semi-finals against Rochdale in 2008, has already appeared at Spotland this season having featured in Luton Town's FA Cup win during November.
DARLINGTON (probable): Redmond, Arnison, White, Miller, Giddings, Moore, Dempsey, G Smith, Gray, Purcell, Diop.
Source: Northern Echo
