Darlington's chief operating officer David Johnston was very impressed with Josh Gowling when he was interviewed for the manager's post.
Later he spoke to the Northern Echo about the former Hereford boss.
"I was very impressed with Josh," said Johnston.
"We did two rounds of interviews. Josh was very, very impressive. Intelligent, articulate, very analytical, he'd analysed every one of our games, looked at the goals we'd scored and conceded, our possession stats in each area of the pitch against the the league average. He also looked at how goals had been scored against us and there was a very clear pattern.
"It was a very impressive use of data but that was just one side. He talked about the players and their strengths, areas of improvement but also about the importance of engagement with the community and supporters and the academy.
"It was a very impressive all-round performance.
"I was unaware he played with Eddie Howe and Jason Tindall at
Bournemouth but he knows them very, very well. Whether that yields
anything from Newcastle, we'll see, but certainly the manager coming in
has to have good contacts with North East clubs and professional clubs
to get players in on loan and hopefully on very minimal fees so if we
need to improve the squad we have the contacts to do that."