Hugh Keevins: The strange case of Billy Davies

Tonight on Superscoreboard a prominent figure will emerge from the shadows after a two year absence from the spotlight.

Billy Davies is arguably more successful on a sustained basis, and unarguably a greater earner of money for the football clubs who have employed him, than any manager currently working in Scotland.

He has a list of accomplishments and records of the once famous broken by him which give Billy a golden c.v.

He has also been accused of being "Obsessed by conspiracy theories" while being riddled with "Self destructive insecurities." The charges were made against him by various members of the media in England, where he was said to have had a running battle with the representatives of the Fourth Estate during the second stint at Nottingham Forest which brought to a temporary end his managerial career.

I was, incidentally, able to repeat these allegations of paranoia and self doubt to his face without there being any blood spilled on the studio floor during the recording of the first interview he has given anywhere during the two years he has spent preparing for his eventual return "To the grass," which is how he describes his workplace on match days and those other days spent preparing for competitive engagements.

Not all of his answers could be as frank as they might otherwise have been because there are outstanding issues which could yet be the subject of legal action and are therefore off limits.

But Billy had the good grace to laugh when I explained, from a journalistic perspective, that those who would attempt to look through the window of a man's soul and arrive at conclusions regarding his mental state are in fact playing at amateur psychology. I know because I've no doubt had a bash at do it yourself psychiatry in my time as a journalist without being troubled by the total lack of qualifications necessary for the job.

What we do know is this; Kilmarnock were recently interested in talking to Davies about their then managerial vacancy, subsequently filled by Lee Clark. And Rangers, during a time when the club was less stable behind the scenes than it is now, was a possible destination for the man who started his professional career at Ibrox as a teenager.

You'll find out how Davies viewed both prospects over the course of a two part discussion which examines an allegedly complex character with an un-complicated catalogue of achievements to his name.

At the age of 33, Billy saved Motherwell from relegation in season 1998/99, taking them to a fourth place finish and the brink of European football the season after that.

In 2002 former Scotland manager Craig Brown asked Davies to become his number two at Preston North End. Two years later, after Brown had left the club, Billy led the club to a play-off final. He had one hundred games in all as manager and equalled the club's record of twenty-two league games without defeat.

While at Nottingham Forest the first time, Billy broke Brian Clough's thirty year record of nine consecutive home wins in the midst of two runs to the play-off semi finals.

At Derby County, the five year plan was to win promotion and end the club's then five year absence from England's Premier League. Billy did it in eleven months.

But on March 23, 2014, with Nottingham Forest in seventh place in the Championship, two points outside of the play-off places with nine games remaining, Billy left the club and the game to enter into a break from football which has so far yet to come to an end.

Why?

That's for him to say tonight.

Having admitted to a bit of 'Previous' when it comes to diagnosing the supposedly difficult to deal with, it would be hypocritical to delve into the inner workings of Davies' mind and come up with a verdict I would expect to be taken seriously. So here goes!

All I will say is he seems perfectly normal to me, other than having a compulsive obsessive's devotion to the game as well as a desire to soon become an ex-manager restored to meaningful employment.

Every day of the time spent exiled from football has been spent working at refreshing his knowledge of players, systems and generally attending to the day to day minutiae of a manager in waiting.

He strikes me as a man who has valuable gifts to offer the game, but the valuables have been locked away in a vault for almost two years instead of being put out on public display.

Intense? Without question. Intimidating? Only if you can't speak up for yourself.

Tonight we might get round to discussing former Celt Vidar Riseth's bizarre reference to the Celtic hierarchy being "Cowards" for not backing Ronny Deila with money enough to be successful. Bizarre because Deila's been bankrolled sufficiently well to sign two dozen players in less than eighteen months since becoming manager.

But we'll also be hearing from a man who made one club one hundred million pounds in a single match and is now an observer of the game rather than an active participant.

That status surely has to be altered sometime soon in Billy Davies. case, or else the game is truly bonkers.