Darlington Football Club manager David Hodgson called in police to search his home over fears that it may have been bugged, it is revealed today.

In his newly-launched autbiography, Mr Hodgson tells how police combed his property for listening devices after he quit the club in 2000.

The search took place after he had left the club, following Darlington's play-off final at Wembley. But, despite Mr Hodgson's fears that private conversations had been overheard, officers found nothing suspicious at his home.

"They swept it from top to bottom and checked the telegraph pole opposite, looking for any device that could record conversations.

"The police used sophisticated equipment and while this was going on, there had to be complete silence in the town," Mr Hodgson recalls.

The book - Three Times A Quaker - recounts Mr Hodgson's three spells in the manager's hotseat at Darlington.

Mr Hodgson returned to Darlington last October, only two months before the club went into administration and chairman George Reynolds left before a takeover by the Sterling Consortium.

The Darlington manager, credited with being instrumental in saving the Quakers from going out of business, will be signing copies of the book at Ottakar's bookshop, in Darlington's Cornmill Centre, between 10am and noon today.

He said he had decided to write the book because he felt it was important to give his side of the story.