IN a three-part series, Chief Sports Writer Steven Baker takes a look at the perilous financial state of football worldwide. Today controversial Darlington chairman George Reynolds explains why ITV Digital's demise could be a blessing in disguise

THE wailing and gnashing of teeth from Nationwide League chairmen predicting a footballing apocalypse is matched only by the deafening sound of champagne corks popping at Darlington.

While his counterparts fear the worst following the collapse of ITV Digital's £315m TV deal, George Reynolds is positively jubilant.

"I'm delighted the television money has gone. In fact, I'd rather everyone got nothing. It would put us all on a level playing field," said the Darlington chairman.

Such an attitude would provoke outrage were it proffered at the next Football League meeting, but Reynolds is unrepentant.

If clubs fold, so be it. And the chairmen who were so quick to accuse Carlton and Granada, or players and their agents, or even Uncle Tom Cobleigh, of bringing the game to its knees should look a little closer to home.

"I don't blame the FA or the Football League, or the players, or the PFA. If the chairmen have been stupid enough to sign the cheques, that's their fault," said Reynolds.

"You can't rely on handouts all your life. It's simple: if you earn £1,000 a week and your wife spends £2,000 a week, you're going to be in trouble. Yes, I think clubs will go out of business this season, but I'm not interested in the problems of clubs who have landed themselves with big wages.

"We dropped a right clanger. In my first season here, we were paying £1,000 win bonuses. But we've learnt from that.

"I've got to the stage now where I don't listen to what the other clubs are saying and doing. I'm looking after my own ship and I'm doing what's best for Darlington.

"If you're the captain of the ship and you put the galley boy on the wheel, and he runs the ship aground, you can't blame the galley boy because you're the captain.

"Some clubs are now in a terrible position. The chairman stands alone, and his only way out is liqudation.

"The players have created a lot of problems by being greedy, and they're to blame for that. But the chairmen are to blame for paying the money they want. They're the only people I point the finger at."

Reynolds claims to have spent £2m in his first year at Darlington in a failed attempt to bring success to Feethams. Now, the grandiose plans for the new stadium are matched by a more thrifty approach to the club's wage bill.

There are no big transfer fees or signing-on payments. But then again, it is a buyer's market.

"There's a huge list of players who are looking for jobs. We're getting players at half the price we would have got them for last year," said Reynolds.

"One player who was on £1,700 a week has come to us saying he would join for £500.

"I'm being offered players whose current clubs are so keen to get rid of them that they're offering to pay more than half of their wages if we take them off their hands.

"The clubs have been living in a fool's paradise. Southend mortgaged their land to buy better players - and they ended up with no ground, players or money.

"Exactly the same thing happened at Hull a while back. They wanted the chairman to spend, and he did. But then the club ran out of money and they were going round with buckets trying to keep the club afloat.

"The bubble has burst but the only people it's really hit home to are the ones who are out of work.

"People think that the worst is over but it's not - it's just starting. The clubs who drop out of the Premiership won't be able to afford life in the First Division.

"Even those clubs who were relegated recently haven't felt the full effect yet because they're going to have to pay top wages to players for at least another year or two. I think it will take three years to straighten out.

"The only way some clubs can survive would be if their players took a drop in wages - but they wouldn't do that.

"It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better."