Safe cracker turned tycoon went back to jail after lavishing cash on a football club

George Reynolds had a gold-laminated business card that read: ‘‘Managing director, chairman, gentleman, entrepreneur, adventurer, maker of money and utter genius.’’ He might also have added: ‘‘Burglar, smuggler, safe cracker, tax evader and jail bird’’, but at the peak of his success, when the Sunday Times ranked him 112th in its rich list with a fortune of £260 million, he modestly left them off the roll call of his accomplishments.

For the most part his fortune was honestly gained. Reynolds, who has died aged 84, was serving his fourth spell in Durham jail for theft in 1976 when a priest suggested to him that, as he was clearly no good at crime, he might try his hand at going straight and becoming a legitimate businessman.

On his release he tried running a joinery business, a coffee bar and a nightclub before he hit upon what he called the ‘‘brilliant idea’’ of making kitchen worktops out of chipboard.

Cutting costs and corners, piling them high and selling them cheap, he became ‘‘the chipboard king’’. With the proceeds he built Witton Hall, a mansion in Co Durham, northeast England, bought a town house in London next door to one of the Spice Girls, and a villa in Spain. There was the obligatory yacht, a private jet, a helicopter and a fleet of cars. He also bought Darlington Football Club, installed himself as chairman and built a 25,000-seat stadium, which naturally he named the George Reynolds Arena.

When he bought seven of his workers new Mercedes and paid off their mortgages, he appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s TV show and she hailed him as ‘‘Britain’s best boss’’. He was also friends with Donald Trump.

Life was sweet and Reynolds was riding high. Yet by 2005 he was back behind bars, having made the rich man’s fatal mistake of buying a football club. When he took over Darlington FC in 1999, it was in the bottom tier of the Football League, heavily in debt and on the verge of extinction. He promised to take it to the Premiership ‘‘within five years’’ and poured his cash into a new stadium in readiness for playing Manchester United.

Initially he was hailed by fans as a knight on a white charger. Yet the relationship soon soured. He claimed he was going to sign Paul Gascoigne, but he never arrived. The team continued to struggle and the new stadium was largely unoccupied. As the fans turned against him, he grew bitter. When they reminded him in raucous fashion of his criminal past, he mocked them by taking to the pitch in a prison suit with arrows and a ball and chain around his ankle.

Local paper the Northern Echo joined the criticism and he responded by threatening editor Peter Barron, who took police advice and had panic buttons and other security