Turbulent times on and off the pitch at troubled club

But it didn't matter to George Reynolds. Back then, he could walk on water, and he paddled his way around the running track. Banked up in front of him were 10,000 Darlo fans, who had snaked down the A1 in a convoy of buses to attend the Division Three play-off final.

Beneath the floodlights, Mr Reynolds sparkled, a huge smile on his face, a tall pile of hair upon his head. He blew kisses and made expansive gestures, holding his scarf high into the wet night sky.

On his arm was his dazzling wife, Susan. In his pocket was a fortune of anything up to £260m - the king of chipboard was, it was claimed, richer than the Queen of England.

Adoration rolled down the terraces. "We love you Georgie, we do," sang the fans.

Less than a year earlier, Quakers had been staring bankruptcy in the face. Indeed, for most of the previous decade, the club had been starring in one sort of a crisis or another.

In 1992, Sir John Hall was sniffing around, hoping to buy the club, move it to St James' Park and rename it Newcastle City, where it would act as a nursery club for his Newcastle United.

To ward Sir John off, Reg Brealey, former owner of Sheffield United, who had a jute business in India, was invited to take over. He promised a 10,000 seater stadium but ended up with five managers on the payroll and debts mounting.

Property developer Mike Peden took over, promised a huge sport and retail complex but ended up nearly £5m in debt.

"Darlington FC, at 10am, on May 6, 1999, not only teetered on the edge of annihilation, its grip on existence was apparently spent," said the then general manager, Ken Lavery.

Two bailiffs were at the door demanding £14,000. All the club could offer was "a few outdated computers, kitchen equipment and the desks and chairs upon which the staff were seated".

But Mr Reynolds was at hand and promised a banker's draft that kept the wolves from the door. Within days, he had taken over the club, paid off the debts, cut ticket prices by a third, promised a 25,000 seater stadium and Premiership status before five seasons were out.

Tonight - Christmas Eve - there will be no Santa Claus anywhere in the world bearing more impressive gifts than these.

Within a year, Mr Reynolds had erected a huge billboard in Darlington's Neasham Road promising "work starts soon" on the stadium, and he had taken the club to Wembley on that sodden night.

Unfortunately, that night turned out to be the high point. It ended in defeat to Peterborough. Within months, Mr Reynolds was dismantling the team that had taken the club to the brink of promotion.

He publicly called the players greedy and exposed their wages - their highest paid, Neil Heaney, was earning an extraordinary £139,251 a year.

Eighteen of manager David Hodgson's squad left in a hurry, followed, two weeks before the start of the new season, by Hodgson himself.

After coming so close to promotion, the 2001-2002 season started disappointingly.

Fans chanted at the chairman from the Tin Shed and were banned.

As relationships deteriorated - and as George Reynolds UK was sold for what Mr Reynolds believed to be £50m shy of its true value - Susan Reynolds poured vitriol on all who were taking her husband's money.

At a fans' forum, she blamed the players for exhibiting greed of "biblical proportions", a director for behaving "like Judas", Mr Hodgson for duping her at "every twist and turn", and she condemned the fans who had abused her, spat at her and poured paint on her car.

Finally, she returned to the players' performance and said: "It isn't unknown for games to be thrown deliberately at this time of the year, by way of favours."

The players got up and walked out.

Ever since, Mr and Mrs Reynolds have maintained the comments were misunderstood and misconstrued, but it was at this point that the bond between the club owner and its supporters was irretrievably broken.

A couple of days later, the lowest crowd of the season turned out to watch a low quality defeat to Macclesfield.

Mr Reynolds stood on the pitch, his hands wedged into the pockets of his big brown coat as he chewed frantically. He looked up into the Feethams stands and stony silence poured down on him.

"It doesn't get much worse," said one Darlington fan as he left early. "Aye," replied his mate, "although tomorrow we might not be in existence."

Mr Reynolds' behaviour became more and more idiosyncratic and egocentric.

The new stadium was named the Reynolds Arena; the club badge was redesigned and then the chairman claimed 87 per cent of fans had voted for the colours to become red-and-white rather than the black-and-white that had been worn since the club's formation in 1883.

Anyone who dared to demur got a personal, threatening visit from Mr Reynolds at home.

The sexuality of a Hartlepool DJ was questioned on a large noticeboard on the A66 outside the new ground, and a campaign was waged to get the editor of The Northern Echo sacked.

It was becoming embarrassing for the town - as the TV documentary Playing By His Own Rules showed - and the forlorn pursuit of Faustino Asprilla, formerly Newcastle's Colombian star, did little to improve the mood.

Darlington FC said goodbye to Feethams on May 4, with a curious 2-2 draw almost devoid of emotion. Fans accepted that the old ground was past it, but wondered how 4,000 regulars would fill a 25,000 stadium.

In the end, they needn't have worried, for the Arena wasn't complete, and for its opening match the council imposed a maximum capacity of 11,500.

Mr Reynolds put the official attendance at 11,600, but it has tailed off dramatically as the Quakers have slumped into the relegation zone.

Not even the reappointment of Mr Hodgson has been able to halt the decline, and only Rochdale had fewer spectators than last weekend's 2,920.

For the club finances, this is disastrous, particularly as 2,800 season tickets were sold on a two-for-one basis at the start of the season.

When stewarding costs £3,200-a-game and wages £25,000-a-week, Mr Reynolds' income from 120 people paying about £10 each does not look very healthy - especially when the taxman is owed about £215,000.

This explains his eagerness to create other income streams from car boot sales, concerts, nightclubs and restaurants. But the planning permission for the stadium, which he says he agreed to under duress, allows him little leeway.

All of which explains the rumours of consortiums and buyouts that have been sweeping the town for months.

Last week, it was said he was prepared to sell the club for £1.5m to a new owner who would then lease the stadium from Mr Reynolds.

In the face of such adversity, Mr Reynolds has shown a belligerent determination, even though his health has deteriorated to such an extent he has been unable to attend a public examination into the affairs of his former company, George Reynolds UK.

It is impossible not to admire the splendid construction that bears his name on the edge of town, but in bullying it through to completion he has alienated so many people that he has been left to foot the bill on his own.

Footing that bill has brought the club to its knees, and it is difficult to see how, with Mr Reynolds at the helm, it will get back on its feet.