Clough said he could walk on the Trent but Davies seems intent on polluting it
Writing about Billy Davies is never particularly easy when his default setting is that the media are somehow out to get him. On the contrary, the football writers I know cherish their times beside the Trent, in keeping with the popular perception of Nottingham Forest back in the day. They are my team and, growing up in the Clough years, there was always a certain pride they were so many people's "second club".
It is certainly not easy seeing words such as "unpleasant" and "paranoid" routinely attached to the old place. Unfortunately, this seems to be the Davies way. Clough used to say he could walk on the Trent. Davies appears intent on polluting it and the saddest thing of all is that it is all so utterly needless and distractive when he is certainly not the worst manager at the City Ground, post-Clough.
He has just been banned from the dugout for five games after confronting the referee Anthony Taylor at half‑time during the 2-2 draw against Leicester. He later complained he had been sent to the stand for merely "raising my voice". What actually happened was Davies deliberately barged into the referee, and swore at him repeatedly. For "deliberately making contact" he was lucky the punishment was not more severe.
Most managers would issue an apology. Instead, Davies put out his response on Friday. "Under the advice of my legal team I will not be conducting any interviews until 26 March."
This is actually in keeping with a season of strange goings-on behind the scenes at the City Ground, featuring media blackouts, unexplained sackings and so much political manoeuvring that the Football League's chief executive, Shaun Harvey, went above Davies's head and asked for a meeting with the club's owner, Fawaz Al-Hasawi, in December to address issues facing the club.
It is certainly an odd carry-on when Davies's usual solicitor, Jim Price, happens to be his cousin and his agent, and has been working in a very senior position for Forest, despite failing the relevant fit-and-proper-person tests because he is currently suspended from the legal profession.
In Davies's first spell at the club, Price infuriated the old regime by advertising his availability for new jobs. He has attracted derision on Twitter but it is when Davies logs on to the same account that things get really interesting. "It's about payback," one message read. "Vengeance is best served cold. Trust me the innocent will not be harmed." Another Championship club's chief executive was quoted in the Daily Telegraph recently referring to Forest as "the Midlands version of North Korea".
Earlier in the season, Davies saw a photographer aiming his lens at the Forest dugout during a game at Millwall and marched over to the 18-yard line to confront him, repeatedly shouting: "Where are you from?" in his face. Stewards eventually had to get involved. The photographer was a freelance and covering the match, in part, for the Forest programme.
Davies is a reasonable Championship manager – sometimes very good, sometimes flawed – and, judging by the amount of money Hasawi has thrown at them, the club expect promotion. It fills me with a mixture of joy and dread. The spotlight burns a lot more brightly in the Premier League and, at this rate, the reputation of a fine club is nose‑diving as the team, potentially, go up. It makes no sense and if saying that makes me part of a media agenda, it is something with which I can live. There are no apologies for thinking it is better to operate with a measure of class, in the old traditions of the club.
