Bad king billy
How it went wrong for Billy Davies
THE lyrics were bellowed with gusto at a triumphant Pride Park. ‘Sacked in the morning, you’re getting sacked in the morning’.
So it went on, as the goals flew in and Billy Davies, the beleaguered Nottingham Forest manager, stood defiantly on the touchline, a agitated oompa-loompa barking instructions that nobody heard.
In fact, the Derby fans were wrong. It was actually late on the Sunday evening when Davies, still bruised and bewildered from a humiliating 5-0 drubbing, was hoisted on a gibbet by Nottingham Forest chairman Fawaz Al Hasawi.
But the result was the same. Barely a year after returning in triumph, the man dubbed ‘King Billy’ by an adoring City Ground was gone, leaving only the stench of failure, burning bridges and a club in chaos.
Once the closest thing to a sure bet in the Championship, the Glaswegian’s career now lies in ruin, his reputation wrecked.
He has alienated all but his closest friends. He has irritated the fans who once adored him. He has lost the respect of almost everybody in the game.
And all because he decided to p*** all over 149 years of history by using Nottingham Forest as a vehicle for his own petty vendetta.
Initially sacked by Forest in 2011 by former chairman Nigel Doughty, Davies felt his tenure had been undermined by negative stories leaked from within the club, the main accusation being that he spent just three days a week in Nottingham.
After a second successive play-off failure, he needed a scapegoat. So, just as he blamed the board for failing to fund a promotion push, he blamed traitors for getting him sacked. Most of all, he blamed the media for printing their tales.
For 18 months he considered his revenge. And when Al-Hasawi, the Kuwaiti millionaire who bought the club in summer 2012, asked Davies to return last February, he wasted little time enacting it.
Within three days, a host of club staff were jettisoned. And these weren’t coaches or players, the accepted casualties of any managerial change.
They were office workers and club stalwarts. They were finance directors and media managers, men who needed their jobs to pay the mortgage. All were perceived allies of Doughty. Later, coach Rob Kelly, another old face, mysteriously vanished from the bench.
In short, he dismantled the entire football and administrative structure of the club and filled the void with Jim Price.
Davies’ cousin and agent, Price couldn’t become a director as he’d already been suspended as a solicitor so instead he assumed an advisory role, and helped carry out what had to be instructions from Davies.
Davies couldn’t sack the media, but he did ban them. First Daniel Taylor of the Guardian, a lifelong Forest fan, was barred from the ground. The local radio station was refused interviews, as was the Nottingham Post and every national newspaper.
Players were strictly off limits, even to Sky. On one occasion, two players visited a hospital to visit sick children and spoke to a local journalist who came along. They were both fined.
On another, a journalist was accosted by Price and coach David Kelly when he tried to listen in on an in-house pitch side radio.
During post-match Press conferences, Davies spoke in nonsensical riddles and gave cryptic answers. He filmed the media so he could decide who to ban. By the end he had stopped coming out at all, citing “legal advice” while he battled an FA charge for pushing a referee. He’ll say it was prag- matic. But when he failed to show his face after last week’s 5-0 drubbing at Derby, it just looked cowardly. In essence, Davies made himself totally unaccountable. No checks within the club. No
balances in the media. He was a despot in all but name and by the end he had started acting like one.
Twice he got into scuffles with photographers because – wait for it – they had dared to take pitch-side pictures of him.
When Blackpool came to visit, they were told they couldn’t conduct their OWN Press with their OWN players by the side of Forest’s pitch. They went ahead anyway.
Weirdest of all were the creepy, Chairman Mao inspired interviews he gave to the BBC’s Natalie Jackson, his handpicked conduit.
Had Davies got things right, none of this would have mattered. Fawaz, the fans – nobody would have cared if he acted like he did. But Davies didn’t get much right.
As usual, there was the cost. During Davies’ first spell at Forest, from early 2009 to May 2011, the wage bill doubled.
Surprise, surprise, the same thing happened again; by the end, Al-Hasawi had pumped some £9m into the club only to find them in the exact same position – 7th – they were when he sacked Sean O’Driscoll on Boxing Day 2012.
Yes, there were injuries. Lots of them too. An entire back four, three midfielders, an influential playmaker in Andy Reid.
Some were rank bad luck, like the cruciate injury that struck skipper Chris Cohen. But it should not be overlooked that Davies’ teams almost invariably burn out.
He works his players so hard that in December they’re flying and by March they are knackered. As things stand, Forest haven’t won in ten. It is surely no coincidence that his teams have reached five play-off competitions and won just one.
He bleated about the injuries relentlessly, seemingly oblivious to the fact he still had players most Championship sides would kill for.
“Yeah, I’ve heard about Forest’s problems,” said Burnley boss Sean Dyche after the Clarets had visited the City Ground in December.“I think he was down to his last 32 fit players today.”
Next, of course, came the FA charge and touchline ban for allegedly pushing a referee. Increasingly, Al-Hasawi saw Davies as an embarrassment to the club.
As ever, though, it was the issue of transfer policy that brought things to a head. Just as he did under Doughty, Davies always wanted ‘One more player’.
Unwilling to dig deeper into his pockets, Fawaz rejected Davies’ wildly ambitious list of loan targets, ordering the Scot to work with what he had. Their relationship deteriorated, and when Davies lost his last protective shield – results – his days were numbered.
His final, defiant act came on the morning of the Derby game.‘Advised’ by the chairman to play Rafik Djebbour and Djamel Abdoun, the Algerian pair signed at Al-Hasawi’s behest, Davies dropped them not just from the XI but from the squad.
Even if Forest had won, he might not have survived such insubordination.When they were hammered, he knew the game was up.
In fairness, no manager should be told who to play. If Al-Hasawi’s influence is anything as insidious as has been suggested – not least by Neil Warnock, who rejected the job – the Scot deserves a measure of sympathy.
But in the end, Davies foundered because he forgot he was representing a football club. Instead, he used Forest to represent Billy Davies. He used it to settle personal grievances, employ his mates and make points.
In 2010-11, when the board refused to fund the signing of Nicky Shorey, all manner of ill-at-ease players popped up at left-back, seemingly to ram the point home. This time, coach Jonathan Greening was brought out of retirement for no good reason.
Whether you agree with Davies or not, that is a dereliction of duty. He was an employee of an institution, tasked with representing its best interests both on and off the field. He did neither.
Davies will almost certainly return. His record alone should ensure that. But if he wants to manage at this level again, he needs to rethink his attitude.