Its an article that was in the Guardian apparantly. I have highlighted the bit that made me laugh out loud.

Reynolds' grand designs lie at the root of Darlington's woeThe murderous economics of League Two football, and the legacy of former owner George Reynolds, leave the Quakers in a perpetual fight for survival

The former Darlington chairman, George Reynolds, has seen his ambitious plans for the club end in disarray and debt.

True to the tangled affairs of many lower-division football clubs, there is more to Darlington's descent into administration – again – than a clear-cut, heart-rending tale of a small club gamely failing in a rich man's world. On Saturday, after the ­Quakers' rough 2–1 home defeat by Maccles­field, on a cut-up pitch at the outlandish 27,000-seat arena built by the former owner George Reynolds, Raj Singh, vice-chairman until he resigned a fortnight ago, rubbed his eyes in the spotlit boardroom, and sighed.

He does believe League Two football has murderous economics, but said the wages for Darlo's patchy team are an unsustainable £270,000 a month and he wants answers. An acquaintance of the club's owner, George Houghton, Singh agreed only in November to lend the club £1.125m. The money was gone in just three months and the club is now insolvent, placed into administration by Houghton.

Singh said £290,000 of his loan had immediately been taken out because it was still owed to Stewart Davies, the money lender from whom Houghton bought the club in 2006. Houghton himself took out another £250,000, to repay money he had put in since this season started. The rest went in wages and stadium running costs – £1.125m spent, just like that.

"I want the administrator to investigate what has happened, where the money has gone," Singh complained. "George Houghton clearly decided he wouldn't put more money in, so I feel it was wrong to put mine in. I feel sorry for the ordinary people here who have lost wages and money."

Houghton's biography, on the club's own website, describes him as a man who made and lost a fortune, then accumulated another in the 1990s largely by building and running care homes for old people. He bought Darlington from Davies in 2006, acknowledging that he planned to make money by developing the land around the arena, which he hoped would also make the club self-financing.

Eighteen months ago two men also from the care homes business, Philip Scott and Graham Sizer, loaned the club £1.7m at 10% interest, and they have a mortgage on the whole lot.

Houghton put millions in – he says £3m in cash – but the development plans did not reach fruition and he came to a point, in a recession, where his other businesses could not sustain sinking money into Darlington. Houghton's finance director, David Harrison, explained: "The intention was to invest so that the club would ultimately not be reliant on a benefactor, but economic circumstances changed. It became very difficult to borrow to put money into non-core businesses like the football club. We had to have a cold hard look, and you have to draw the line."

So Darlington have managed to consume £6m in loans since Houghton took over three years ago, and the beleaguered manager, Dave Penney, is now making do by introducing 16-year-old youth team players he knows are not ready. The club owes an estimated £300,000 in tax and VAT, with the usual list of local suppliers and other creditors owed money they will not see again.

Yet the Quakers' plight cannot be fully comprehended without taking in Reynolds' rule. He was the former career criminal who built an empire in chipboard, bought the club from previous administrators in 1997, then, rather than refurbish the homely, creaking Feethams ground, bulldozed on with his arena, built on the edge of town and named after himself.

Watching a match in that venue is one of English football's weirder experiences. Set in acres of empty car park, on Saturday supporters' club stalwarts were rattling buckets, although there was a weariness about the fans, dropping money into this, the third insolvency in 12 years. This administrator, Dave Clark of Brackenbury Clark & Co, has closed the West Stand, to save costs, so all the 2,995 crowd, mostly middle-aged, battle-worn and wearing black, were huddled in the main stand. The rest of the arena yawned emptily back at them, except for 40 or so Macclesfield fans, high up the East Stand, gleefully ­celebrating Gareth Evans' two goals, taunting Darlo fans with chants of "Where's your money gone?"

The stadium treats directors and executive box holders to the trappings of Reynolds' grand design: Italian marble floor in reception, escalators to the boardroom and hospitality suites, red carpets, plate glass, state-of-the-art urinals with laser flushing. Down below, the supporters' experience is a touch earthier: in through the turnstiles (£18 an adult ticket) to a wide, draughty holding area with a bare concrete floor, where fans at half-time queue for coffee from a vending machine, or join a 20-yard line for a pie. Such was George's vision.

He always argued that Feethams, where the football ground was accessed through the genteel cricket club, had had its day, and he believed that once he built the arena and spent money on the team, crowds would come in similar numbers to those at nearby Middlesbrough. But after the first games, the curious newcomers never returned and Darlington has ever after relied on its same 3,000 core supporters, many still pining for Feethams.

Reynolds, an orphan and borstal boy, may have been seeking the love and respect he had never known by building his £16m monument, but he ran out of money before completing it and borrowed £3.5m from Davies and two associates, and £400,000 from Davies personally, in 2002. The agreement stipulated interest of 30% payable on the whole amount if he missed a payment, and just before Christmas 2003, Reynolds was forced to put Darlington into administration. ­Davies' loan meant the club and ground came to him, and he demanded possession of Reynolds' house, too.

Reynolds refused to be sunk, bouncing back with a business selling "adult bedroom furniture" and S&M equipment, under the unbeatable slogan: "Your home may well be your castle, but where do you put the dungeon?" But in October 2005 he was back in prison himself, convicted of defrauding the Inland Revenue of more than £400,000 tax.

Now, when the fans sit watching their team in that cantilevered bowl of grand pretension, it is as if they are paying, every week, to spend time in Reynolds' head.

"The stadium is a white elephant," rues Tony Taylor, chair of the supporters' trust, who first rattled a bucket in a Darlo crisis in the early 1970s. "We need to understand how so much money has been spent in such a short time here, and we need to rally, again, to save our club."

Singh, a football fan – of Middlesbrough – who is fancied to take over, believes that for all its problems, Darlington can survive. "I want the administrator to get to the bottom of this, then we'll see," he said. "I think it can be sustainable, if people don't get carried away with the stadium and big ideas, and concentrate on the fans coming in, because they are the club's bread and butter."

A future may yet be feasible for the Quakers, even in the house that George built.



The story isnt really funny but that bit about Reynolds is.

As sad as the story is there still appears to be some optimism that it can all be sorted. The football club element of the deal can do nothing other than lose money if the stadium is owned and managed by Houghton.

I just can't see them surviving.

...cantilevered bowl of grand pretension......

Very apt description. Makes White Elephant Area sound boring

Bloody excellent article that.

Sums up there full plight too an absolute tee!

For the average Darlo supporter that must make you wonder if this really is the end of the line, it makes a mockery of genuine fans rattling buckets when silly money appears to be being bandied about willy nilly.
The only winner from this will be the speculators and the biggest winner of all will be the borers, who'll have a nice new recruiting area.

Its easy all you need to do is charge £45 per game.... :thankfookthesmileysareback: