George Reynolds (born 1937) is a British businessman best known for his time as chairman of Darlington Football Club.
Reynolds became involved in criminal activities during the 1950s, and spent six months in jail for smuggling watches from incoming ships in the 1960s.[1] Later, he established a series of businesses, including a £25m kitchen surface factory based in Shildon and went on to amass a £300 million fortune.
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Reynolds became the chairman of Darlington Football Club in 1999 and built the team a new stadium costing £20 million, which he named after himself. Reynolds was originally very popular with fans but he then took the club into administration and left the club in January 2004, just months after the new 25,000-seat stadium (one of the largest stadiums outside the Premier League) was opened. This has prompted many Darlington fans to chant "there's only one George Reynolds" sarcastically at matches. The stadium was renamed shortly afterwards.
He famously declared his ambition to take Darlington into the Premier League, and when he took the club over they had been in the Football League's basement division since 1992. The new stadium did nothing to improve their on-field fortunes, and they did not move out of the basement division of the Football League until 2010 - when they were relegated to the Conference.
He married Susan, who has appeared on the Channel 4 gameshow Without Prejudice?,. He built the Witton Hall mansion on the grounds of a cottage in the village. Some extravagant purchases included jets, helicopters, a swimming pool, a house next door to the Spice Girls in London, a yacht, a Spanish villa and a fleet of cars.
Before he married Susan, he had a previous marriage with a woman named Karen with whom he had 2 children - Victoria who works in Human Resources and Alexandria who is studying a law degree and owns City West Dance Studio. He has a grandson called Oliver.
In 2000 he was the victim of an attempted mugging as he left a restaurant in North London with his wife and mother-in-law. Two men bundled him to the ground and tried to prise a diamond ring from his finger before removing his £41,000 Rolex watch. A third man demanded that Mrs Reynolds hand over her watch as well. But she began screaming and a dustbin man, who was working nearby, picked up a pole and chased off the gang who were subsequently arrested.
He was tried for charges of tax evasion after being stopped with £500,000 worth of cash in the boot of his car [1]. The court heard how Reynolds was now almost penniless having sold his houses, cars and yacht. In October 2005 Reynolds was found guilty and sentenced to three years imprisonment. Reynolds was released on 6 December 2006 but was electronically tagged and subject to a curfew until he received his parole licence in April 2007. He currently operates a vending machine company, and is involved in retail.
