FOOTBALL club chairman George Reynolds will tell television viewers this week that he has every right to confront his "detractors" at home.

The Darlington FC boss will speak out in a BBC "fly-on-the-wall" documentary to be screened tomorrow night about his confrontation of people he believes are his critics.

Police have investigated a number of incidents in which Mr Reynolds has made unannounced visits to homes.

One on-going investigation is into several visits made by Mr Reynolds and his associates to the home of Peter Barron, editor of The Northern Echo, where written warnings were left.

Chief Inspector John Blacklock, operations manager at Darlington Police said: "As part of the investigation, we have spoken to Mr Reynolds and made it clear that this has to stop."

Mr Reynolds refers to his visits to Mr Barron's home during the documentary, which is called George Reynolds: Playing By His Own Rules.

He says he and his family were adversely affected by publicity which followed a mass walk-out by Darlington players in March last year after Mr Reynolds' wife, Susan, made a controversial speech at a fans' meeting. In it, she said: "It isn't unknown for games to be thrown deliberately at this time of year by way of favours."

In the documentary, the millionaire football chairman defends his actions and issues a warning that he will continue to go to people's homes if they criticise him or his family.

He tells the BBC: "People are all right in groups until you knock on their front doors at 20 past two in the morning.

"They don't like that. Nobody has a go at me.

"I find out where they live and I go and knock on their door."

Darlington Supporters Trust has described the threats to confront critics at their homes as a "very unfortunate development".

But the football boss tells the documentary: "Why should people be scared of me? I am 67 and you get 20 young lads aged 19 to 25, what chance would I have against them?

"But they wouldn't have it on a one-to-one, so who's the coward?"

He also describes his tough up-bringing in Sunderland and talks about one of his convictions for smuggling watches into the country by a ship sailing between Wearside and Rotterdam.

During the 30-minute programme, Mr Reynolds criticises the Press and claims the media make wrong accusations and use labels to describe him.

He says his motto for success is, "Never listen to the fans or manager because they never get it right", and he admits if he could turn back the clock he should have looked into taking over Sunderland, instead of Darlington.

* George Reynolds: Playing By His Own Rules is screened on BBC1 North East and Cumbria tomorrow, at 11.05pm.