Darlington may have lost on Saturday, but with the season all but over the result was far less important than rumoured off-the-field activities.

According to one weekend newspaper report, Craig Liddle has been "ordered to take a huge cut in wages" while another source alleges the captain has been offered a 75 per cent cut in salary.

After the collapse of the Football League's £315m deal with ITV Digital and with attendances at Feethams returning to the pre-George Reynolds era, some of the club's highest earners could be expected to leave.

But Reynolds last night denied he had held contract renegotiations with Liddle, and says, at the moment, he has got no plans to have any in the near future. But he admitted he does want to get rid of some of the club's players.

He said: "I haven't renegotiated anyone's contract. I'm undecided about doing it in the future. There's some players who I'd like to get rid of but I've got to discuss it with the manager first.

"If the ones we've got were good enough we'd have got promoted, but we haven't so they can't be that good can they?

"We're fetching in fresh, new players, better players. We've got a queue of good players lined up.

"If a club came in for Craig and made a good offer for him it would be wrong of me to stand in the way.

"Nobody has come in for him yet, I don't think anyone will.

"Nobody is selling players anymore, they're giving them away. On transfer deadline day about three players changed hands for money and they were all agreed days before ITV Digital went under."

Liddle has refused to comment, while, after Saturday's game, boss Tommy Taylor refused to be drawn on the subject. He would only state that Liddle was his best player and he would want him to stay if the possibility of him leaving ever arose.

Liddle, a vital part of Quakers' side, is the supporters' most popular player by far and still has two years of a three-year contract to run, so the club would be entitled to a ask for a transfer fee should he leave in the summer.

If he did leave fans would be furious, and such is their anger several yesterday contacted The Northern Echo to state they will stop attending Darlington matches until a major change at the top of club's hierarchy is made.

Reynolds, who The Times Rich List stated possesses a mere £75m, as opposed to the £240m he claimed to have when he took over the club three years ago, was not at Spotland. But sections of the 269-strong Darlington contingent clearly have had enough as they chanted "Reynolds out" while Liddle received strong backing throughout the game.

The game itself was a condensed version of Darlington's season.

It got off to a good start with Barry Conlon putting Quakers one-up. But before half-time Rochdale scored three goals, and in the second half there wasn't a great deal of incident as the match finished rather tamely.

After just 11 seconds Rochdale's Gareth Griffths managed to get himself booked by fouling Conlon and two minutes later the striker gave Quakers the lead as Taylor' side got off to a positive start.

Eight yards from goal he tidily chested down a long throw from Paul Heckingbottom before turning and firing past keeper Neil Edwards to notch his 11th goal of the season.

But the lead lasted just four minutes as Clive Platt beat Adam Reed for pace as he chased a long-ball before neatly lobbing the onrushing Chris Porter from the edge of the box.

Until that point Darlington had matched the hosts, but Platt's goal signalled the end of any chance Quakers had of winning.

For the remainder of the game they lacked a cutting edge against a team who were simply better in every department.

Just before the half-hour mark Lee McEvilly was awarded a somewhat dubious, but not undeserved, goal when his thunderous shot was adjudged to have crossed the line after crashing off the under side of the bar.

Play carried on for around ten seconds and David Flitcroft managed to put the easiest of rebounds wide until the referee noticed the linesman flagging.

An annoyed Taylor said: "Phil (Brumwell) was down that end of the pitch warming up and he said no way did it cross the line, but you've got to accept the decision of the linesman and referee - you can't beat them!"

Soon the game was as good as over when Porter could only parry a Platt blast and Paul Simpson was on hand to tap home the rebound from close-range.

Much of the remainder of the match was extremely flat.

But there was a late burst which saw Darlington force a few shots on target then Conlon cleared a goal-bound Rochdale shot off the line

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