Darlington - York City Reserves ?
Tony Bridges (When Saturday Comes, #418, March 2022) noted 46 players who have played for both Nottingham Forest and Derby County since 1970. He thought it was a record for the number of players who have played for any 2 clubs since 1970. He was wrong.
I can name 81 players who've played for York City and Darlington in the same period. They include Marco Gabbiadini at the end of his career, David Stockdale who played for both clubs at the start of his career and Gary Himsworth, a glutton for punishment, who had 2 separate spells with both clubs. The majority took a direct route between the clubs.
In the early days, it was a one way road, indeed in the late 1970s, Darlington regularly fielded 5 ex City players in their line up, locally they were nicknamed "York City Reserves", the likes Chris Jones, Jimmy Seal, Barry Lyons, John Stone, Dennis Wann, Phil Taylor and John Peachey.
In recent years it has been a much more 2 way road trodden by many largely nondescript players.
The links between City and Darlington were originally covered in an article in new frontiers (December 1993).
For the record, making a direct journey up along A19 between the clubs were:
Whilst taking a more scenic detour between the clubs were: