AT A fans' forum in June, Darlington chairman George Reynolds said: "He who has the gold, rules."

David Hodgson yesterday discovered exactly what that meant. His gold had been sold to other clubs, or at least allowed to slip through his pan. Eighteen of the 33 players he has tried to build into a team in the last year have left Feethams, and now Hodgson has followed them.

Yesterday the club's annual pre-season photo-call was cancelled, ostensibly because of kit problems, and a youth team tour of Scotland. But a look at the list of those who have gone missing since last season's photo shows the extent of the problem Hodgson was confronted with.

It is the second time Hodgson has parted company with the Quakers. The first time was in December 1995 when he and co-manager Jim Platt were told to sell players.

Yesterday, Hodgson quit partly because he felt he wasn't doing himself or the club justice, and that he was mentally tired. In recent weeks, and especially this week, he has 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.

All managers are passionate in their own way, but Hodgson could not contain his emotions at times. He was a journalists' dream. He spoke from the heart, and there were times in post-match interviews following defeats when he would speak without a break for three or four minutes on the qualities which he believes every footballer should possess - commitment, professionalism, and pride.

The 6-0 defeat at Fulham in February 1997 was one interview in particular which, on a bigger stage, would have rivalled Kevin Keegan's famous outburst against Alex Ferguson. Hodgson was in tears several times - especially after the standard of the Feethams pitch nosedived in January this year - and none more so after the play-off final defeat by Peterborough, when he broke down in the Wembley tunnel, calling it the worst defeat in his professional career. But there were other times when he cast aside his natural caution and enjoyed the moment, such as the FA Cup win at Hednesford - a rare away win in season 1997-98 - the play off win over Hartlepool this year, and the narrow defeat at Aston Villa in the FA Cup.

He believed in setting high standards due to his two years at Liverpool when they were at the height of their powers in the mid-1980s. He wanted his team to play like the all-conquering Reds, but that was sometimes difficult in the rough and tumble world of the Third Division at places like Lincoln and Rochdale. Travelling became a problem in his early days - Quakers won once away in 1997-98 - yet at home, they played excellent football whenever they could and Hodgson lost only 16 league games in front of his own crowd.

Hodgson's contacts in the game were extensive. Suddenly there was an influx of players from Canada, Austria, France and Scandinavia - although only Jason DeVos and Mario Dorner were successful.

But when in the past could Darlington have signed players of the undoubted quality of Marco Gabbiadini, Neil Aspin, Craig Liddle, Martin Gray, Neil Heaney and Lee Nogan? None of these big names cost a penny in transfer fees, but they were of high calibre.

The club has a lot to thank Hodgson for. It was he who insisted on the unpopular Steve Morgon should resigning as a condition of his return to the club in November 1996. He also refused to sell players and to sanction a payment from a youth team grant which would have given the flagging Mike Peden era some breathing space in April 1999.

It was Hodgson who stopped a players' strike before a game at Brentford in September 1998 when they weren't paid by Peden, and it was through his friendship with Kenny Dalglish that he pulled off the £600,000 transfer deal of Paul Robinson and Jamie Coppinger to Newcastle in 1998 - cash which he believed was going towards the new stand. He paid bills out of his own pocket pre-Reynolds to bail the club out of embarrassing situations.

He led the club to its first appearance in the third round of the FA Cup in eight years at Wolves in January 1998, to the top of the Third Division for the first time in seven years in September 1998 and to a second Wembley appearance in May.

Surviving as a Third Division manager takes some doing. Peden tried to sack him after the home defeat by Brighton in October 1998, but Hodgson strongly argued his case, and from then on, had the better of Peden.

But Reynolds, as he has proved in business, is an equal who is also prepared to stand his corner, and yesterday Hodgson decided that he couldn't continue