Controversial former Doncaster Rovers owner Ken Richardson dies at 84

Richardson, who oversaw the downfall of the club in the late 1990s and was jailed for his part in a botched arson plot to burn down the club’s former Belle Vue ground, is understood to have died at his home in the Isle of Man.

Bridlington Town, who Richardson also ran at one stage, confirmed the news in a short statement.

A spokesman for the East Coast club said: “Bridlington Town have today been informed of the death of former chairman Ken Richardson.

“Mr Richardson was chairman of the club in the early 1990s, and helped the club with significant improvements to its Queensgate ground, funding an all-seater main stand, the clubhouse, turnstiles and a set of floodlights.

“Under his ownership, Bridlington Town won the FA Vase at Wembley in 1993, beating Tiverton Town 1-0.

“Bridlington Town sends our deepest condolences to Mr Richardson’s family and friends at this difficult time.”

However, Richardson was seen as a figure of hate after taking charge at Rovers and was blamed by supporters for the club’s relegation from the Football League in the disastrous 1997-98 season, one of the worst by any club in the history of the League.

Throughout the season, angry protests were staged against Richardson and his detested sidekick Mark Weaver, with pitch invasions, demonstrations and banners at games.

But he will also be remembered as the owner who tried to burn down his own club’s stadium.

At his trial in 1999, the wealthy businessman, who built his fortune on a sack factory in East Yorkshire, offered £10,000 to a former SAS soldier to start the fire in 1995 at the club's Belle Vue ground, causing damage put at £100,000.

The prosecution said Richardson's intention was to try to force Rovers to move to a new stadium.

The plan failed when Alan Kristiansen, who was hired to start the fire, left his mobile phone at the scene and was quickly traced and arrested.

He was jailed for four years for his part in the plot and after his release went into hiding and obscurity on the Isle of Man.

And it wasn’t his first time in the the dock.

In 1984 Richardson was given a nine-month suspended sentence and fined £20,000 for his part in a racing scandal known as the Flockton Grey affair.

Flockton Grey was a British race horse at the centre of one of the largest betting scandals to hit British horseracing when the horse was replaced with a ringer, Good Hand, which romped to victory, sparking an investigation in which Richardson was once again at the centre of the plot to defraud bookies.

He was banned from racing for 25 years.

Instead, he turned his attentions to football, becoming president of Bridlington Town, overseeing a period of success.

But Richardson then decamped the club to Belle Vue – and the club later folded.

Instead, he took up the reins at Rovers, installing a string of managers, picking the team himself and distancing himself from increasingly angry supporters, upset at shadowy goings on behind the scenes.

Things rapidlly unravelled after it was discovered Richardson had advertised the ground for sale in a national newspaper and the catastrophic 1997-98 season saw Rovers tumble out of the league winning just four games from 46 and conceding more than a hundred goals in the process.