A few articles on Darlington

[Ex Shelton Seagull]

I hope these articles (purloined from the excellent Darlo Uncovered website) will provide a little insight into George Reynolds. Just in case anyone felt like feeling sorry for him.


Former Chairman and 97% shareholder of Darlington Football Club, George Reynolds, has spent another day in court to try and explain his business dealings with his former company George Reynolds UK.
The whole case has brought out some interesting facts which Darlington fans should know. It seems that alot of money has been transferred from GRUK to Darlington Football Club and not from George Reynolds himself.
A loan of between £4m and £6m from GRUK to Darlington Football Club was written off by GRUK in April 2001. Reynolds said he nothing to do with writing it off.
Reynolds admitted that he treated money in the accounts of GRUK as his own and used the funds as his own personal bank account. Even the vehicles he drove, a Rolls Royce, Range Rover and Mercedes, are all part of the liquidated GRUK company.
In the accounts it showed that a loan of £6,822,650 was given to the football club from GRUK but then written off. This was all in the football club accounts that were available publicly and mentioned many times on Uncovered's messageboard, much to the annoyance of Mr Reynolds. When asked why the loan was written off he answered "I don't know."
He was then asked why he signed the paper to agree to the write of, "I just sign paper" replied Reynolds.
Shares in Darlington Football Club bought by GRUK for hundreds of thousands of pounds were later transferred to Mr Reynolds, apparently for £1. Once again Reynolds denied the figure, saying he would consult his chequebook stubs.
The take over of Darlington Football Club also throws up some strange figures. Initially it was claimed the football club was bought for £200k, but when it was shown in the following years accounts the figure was shown as £666,066. "Where did that figure come from?" asked the barrister. "You better ask my accountant" replied Reynolds.
George was then quizzed on just how much of his OWN money was put into the new stadium. Reynolds stated that he was allowed to take money from GRUK as it was his money that started the business up years ago. "That money was the company's. The fact that you could have taken it out by some lawful mechanism isn't the issue, that lawful mechanism was never invoked. The money was lawfully the company's." the barrister told Reynolds.
The Reynolds told how if he did things legally he would have had to pay 50% tax, so he did it the wrong way instead.
Reynolds was asked why he bought the shares of Darlington Football Club for £1 from GRUK when they had paid £666k for them months earlier. "You can buy shares for that, they can be worth two pence the next day. I am not into stocks and shares, I am oblivious to shares to be honest."
was GR's answer.
A few other strange financial dealings were discussed but they didn't involve the football club. But another loan of £0.9m was given to the club after the £6m loan was written off. Once again GRUK, which went bust with debts of millions, were the kind donators.
It was revealed how Reynolds cash flow had dried up and work on the stadium was struggling to carry on. Strange that as when I visited the stadium at this exact time, due to concerns about a slow down in construction, I was advised by GR that there was no such problems and then told about how he issued a writ on ICI. It was at this time he talked about erecting the messageboard at the ground.
The car park at the stadium only got laid after Reynolds did a deal with Hall Construction to carry out the work in exchange for his engineering yard at Coundon because he had no money left to do it.
The case has now been adjourned and will return at a future date. After the hearing Reynolds said that he was 'delighted' to be given the opportunity to explain himself.
On a final note, in the last set of accounts it has stated that Reynolds 'Director's Account stood at £5.6m. Reynolds now claims he is owed £14m. As yet there has been a lack of evidence on either claim.
So the question must be asked. Just how much of Reynolds' OWN money was put into the club?

 

[Ex Shelton Seagull]

And this one provides an overview of his time at Darlington.

George Reynolds four years at the healm of Darlington FC have certainly been without doubt the most eventful in our 120 year history. It hascome to an end and as usual things are not just plain and simple. Darlo now face a fight for our lives.

In May 1999 George Reynolds walked into Darlington Football Club and was greeted, by the majority, with open arms. The football club was on the verge of administration and it looked like the end was near for the 120 year old club.

But in comes a local businessman who claimed he was worth £260m and took the supporters on a roller coaster ride nobody will ever forget. When he first took over the club his remarkable promises began. "We will bring a new dawn to Darlington and give fans a real reason to celebrate. They won't have to wait long before we are knocking on the door of the Premiership." said Reynolds just before he put pen to paper to take over.
The crowds chanted his name on the terraces 'there's only one Georgie Reynolds' 'Georgie Georgie Show us your scarf' was another. Now the fans are thanking god that there is in fact only one George Reynolds.
The playing side of Darlington Football Club was already showing signs of promise, David Hodgson had players like Marco Gabbiadini and Craig Liddle already on the books. But with the cash injection from Reynolds he went out and bolstered his squad with some quality players, Neil Heaney and Lee Nogan. Promotion was a real possibility and the fans were eager to see how their team fared.
Reynolds also reduced admission prices to the lowest in the football league as he 'brought football back to the fans'. The lowest price was £5 adults £3 concession.
But off the pitch he had already started his battles with the Darlington people. His promise of building the club a new 25,000 seater stadium was not welcomed by everybody, not least the local residents of Neasham Road to which the stadium was to be built. Nora Pollard, 75, said: "I think it's disgusting, an absolute disgrace. They're just taking us as fools."
Only months after his takeover he was accused of being on an 'ego trip'. He defended himself by saying "If you go to watch a band, and the lead singer doesn't turn up, then there's no band.
"Without the main singer in our band, then we wouldn't have a club. I've paid off the debts and have plans for a new stadium.
"I'm doing a public relations job to the best of my ability for the club, and for the first time ever, Darlington are being noticed on a national scale. When was the last time Darlington were featured on BBC Grandstand?
"You read about clubs being taken over, and the chairmen paying the debts off. But that's easy with other people's money - I paid off Darlington's debts with my own. There's not a chairman in the country who's done that.
"Take me out of the equation, and the club loses the publicity.
"I sat down with a couple of directors last week, and taking into account television, radio and newspapers, Darlington must have had something like £11m worth of publicity since the start of May."
To his credit he invested in the team and the dividends were paying off. The squad was exciting to watch and the Darlington fans had been starved of success for so long. The bookies made us hot favorites to win the Third Division title, let alone promotion, based on the theory that the financial backing of new saviour George Reynolds will carry them into the Second Division and beyond.
The Quakers soon shot up the league and we in the automatic promotion spot for large periods of time.
Darlo's luck seemed to change since Reynolds arrival. We even got pulled out of the hat in the FA Cup lucky losers draw. That was the year Manchester United went to Brazil and refused to play in the FA Cup. A trip to Aston Villa was the prize and thousands of Darlo fans made the trip to the midlands to see Darlo lose.
Problems with the Feethams pitch became a bit of an embarrassment. Pre-Reynolds we managed to drown several thousands worms in an attempt to irrigate the waterlogged turf. But Reynolds soon got the problem sorted and got to work on improvements to the drainage. A huge inflatable cover was also bought to protect it from the elements.
In February of 2000 Darlington Borough Council gave their consent for the building of the stadium and it was now down to the Highways Agency to give the final say so. Local Residents were fuming, the Neasham Road Action Group said the whole saga had been "mismanaged and dealt with too hastily."
Reynolds was still well supported by the fans of the club and he even received a special award from the supporters club. The award presented to the Reynolds for the person who had made the biggest contribution to the club throughout the year. Reynolds was delighted with the accolade, "I am absolutely delighted and honored to receive this very important award."
He continued by thanking the fans : "The supporters are everything to me, and I am deeply indebted to their continuing efforts week in week out. In my opinion the Darlington fans are the best in the country and I will always treasure this award."
But things were soon to take a turn for the worse. In the May Darlington were to miss out on an automatic promotion place on the last day of the season. They settled for a play off thrashing of local rivals Hartlepool and headed down to Wembley.
Due to England playing Brazil on the Saturday in a friendly, Darlo fans had to contend with an horrendous Friday night journey to the capital to watch their heroes play in horrendous conditions. It was wet, cold and the pitch was dire, in some ways The Quakers should have felt at home as it was similar to the terrible Feethams turf.
The team played well and deserved to win but failed to convert the few chances they had. Their opposition, Peterborough United, scored with virtually their only chance and the Darlo Dream was over.
But next season Darlington were sure to take the league by storm. The squad was good enough to go on and win the league and traveling back form London the fans had to be optimistic. But little did we realise that there was trouble ahead.
Marco Gabbiadini left the club when his contract was allowed to expire and Reynolds started to accuse the players of being greedy. In July of 2000 the players wages were published in The Northern Echo and the first uproar since the chairmans arrival had started. The figures for the 1999/2000 season reveal that Darlington's highest wage earner, who is understood to be Neil Heaney, was paid a basic salary of £72,708. But with match appearances and other bonuses, this figure was boosted to £139,251. Even a player on an apparently "low" salary of £23,399, and who played only 19 games last season, was paid £35,575 when the bonuses were taken into consideration. The average salary for a third division player is £37,000. The total wage bill for last season came to just under £1.4m. The staff wages were also published.
The wages were extremely high and with the failure to gain promotion Reynolds decided it was time to do it his way. PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor believed revealing the players' wages will do nothing for team morale. "A football chairman should not resort to such public tactics to get his own way and it certainly is not a conducive way of trying to get the loyalty of his players. We would argue there is an element of confidentiality to players contracts and this is a very strange step that he has taken."

Players started to leave. Gabbiadini was the first, then Heaney and Steve
Tutill and Peter Duffield departed in hostile circumstances. The first big name was mentioned. "I'm the man to save Gazza!" Reynolds stated boldy. This was a sign of things to come.
In August just before the season kicked off David Hodgson quit the club. Hodgson quit partly because he felt he wasn't doing himself or the club justice, and that he was mentally tired. In the weeks building up to his departure he had become increasingly frustrated at the lack of breakthroughs in the transfer market. He felt that he was at a disadvantage to other clubs because the chairman wouldn't pay signing on fees or agents fees, and he missed out on several players.
Chairman Reynolds and Hodgson are strong personalities, and both had sometimes contrasting ideas on how the club should be run. Inevitably, one of the immovable objects would have to give. They were to be at loggerheads for months to come and even entered into a public slanging match on a local radio station.
Gary Bennett took over and the next season was to prove to be disappointing. The fans were used to exciting football from exciting players. Some big names had left the club and finishing in the bottom half of the league was not received well.
But work on the stadium was underway and Reynolds was adamant this was the way forward. "When you take into account that Darlington and its surrounding area has 300,000 people, we can take 10,000 from there.
"Plus, we will take 5,000 apiece from Sunderland, Newcastle and Middlesbrough. We'll be offering good facilities, good football at a good price. Only last week, a few Middlesbrough fans came to see the ground, and were so impressed that they bought season tickets there and then."
He also revealed, back in 1999 that the club has only seven executive boxes available in the new stadium, even before a brick has been laid."We have already sold 18 boxes at £15,000 apiece,"
In June of 2001 Uncovered revealed that the stadium would be named after Reynolds. Talking to this website Reynolds told us The thing is that if you look around the country, Huddersfield's stadium is called The McAlpine stadium, he only put £1.5m in it. I wasn't bothered whether it was named after me but I have put £27m into this stadium so I can't see how anybody can complain. If they wanted me too I could take my £27m away and they could find somebody else who would pay £27m for there name to be n a stadium."
On August 30th 2001 the Supporters Trust was launched. Whilst the club was not in any financial trouble the Trust was there for the fans to air their views
The major talking point of this season was the infamous fans forum. This was where Mr Reynold's wife made a passionate speech and accused the players of 'throwing games'. The speech came after Darlington lost at home to Torquay Unted after putting in one of their worst displays of the season.
This put the fans against Reynolds even more and the relationship between the too parties was never to be the same again.
Money was so tight at the club the then manager Tommy Taylor asked if anybody could pay our new goalkeepers wages as he didn't have the funds available. Amazingly readers of D@RLO UNCOVERED came up with the money required. But Reynolds backed down and paid the wages and claimed he never told Taylor he couldn't have the money.
In May of 2002 George made his first 'home visit' to a local journalists house. Craig Stoddart, who works for The Northern Echo, received a knock on his door and was confronted by Reynolds. The police were called but Reynolds had left by the time they arrived.
Again the club finished the season near the bottom of the table but no more investment was made in the team. The fans were becoming frustrated especially as they could see a new multi million pound stadium being erected on the outskirts of the town.
Then at the start of last season we had the Tino affair. A comedy sketch you could say. Amazingly George had somehow convinced Tino Asprilla that his future lied with Darlington. At first fans could hardly believe it, but when he was paraded around Feethams it really looked like he was coming. This was to be the biggest transfer shock English football had ever seen. Tino agreed terms and the club applied for a work permit. On the day he was expected to sign Tino did a runner and has never been seen since. The club became a laughing stock
The season was a disaster and the club flirted with relegation. Then in January of last year I myself started to receive 'home visits' after criticizing the way the club was run. One night I opened my front door to be confronted by Mr Reynolds and his friend Michael Knighton. We had a lengthy chat and we finished on friendly terms. For the next three month my phone did not stop ringing. Well over 100 calls were made, nightly but mostly on friendly terms.
Then relations turned sour once again after he banned 16 year old fanzine editor David MacLean. He also received a home visit and Reynolds said "Hitler would have been proud of him. He would have been part of a propaganda machine just like William Joyce, known as Lord Haw Haw.".
Once again the season was poor and Darlo escaped the threat of the drop with just a few games to go.
But never fear, the new stadium would open in August. But even then it looked like it might not be finished. The building of the stadium had slowed dramatically and when the companies house website showed the club had taken out a loan with certain lenders the fans began to worry.
But according to the club it everything was fine and there was 'no debts'
The first game at the 'Reynolds Arena' saw a crowd of over 11,500 turn up. The Quakers were defeated and we have never seen the majority of that crowd ever again.
In September I received my sixth home visit of the year. With fans angry at the way the club was going Reynolds decided the time had come to put his foot down. The police were called and I ended up being banned for life. The reason was never explained to me.
My brother was banned for daring to question Mr Reynolds decision, whilst Craig Stoddart from The Northern Echo was banned for, using George's words, 'probably assisting me'.
My website was shut down temporarily for personal reasons. My neighbours were being knocked up by Reynolds as he stated he was having a demonstration against me. My family were receiving phone calls from members of the press and Reynolds issued a statement about myself which had amazing accusations, most of which were totally false. Things were getting out of hand. I continued working for the Rivals team and was the 'life in the lower leagues' correspondent and had a weekly column on football365.com.
At the end of October the BBC screened a fly on the wall documentary about Reynolds and the run up to the opening game of the stadium. In the documentary he was shown saying phrases such as 'the customer is always wrong' and the whole programme did not put him in a very good light.
At the next home game the fans showed there feelings and a demonstration took place. Things could not go on the way they did. Reynolds made the amazing step of getting former manager David Hodgson back at the club. This did take some guts. He then lifted mine and the other bans from the club and the website started up again.
Unfortunately things were too late and on December 23rd the club was put into administration. A great Christmas gift for all Darlington supporters.
Reynolds reign finally ended on Monday evening and now the fans need to raise £250k quickly to attempt to join a consortium who are looking at buying the club. It is going to be hard, but Darlo fans will never give up.