I took a dislike to him when he was Preston manager. After our George Burley side went down 2-0 at Deepdale in the first leg of a play off against them he had his players banging on the walls and shouting as if it was job done. No class in victory at all!
The following season against Leeds he was up to his old tricks again. Kicking a ball onto the pitch and then pointing out to the officials that two balls were on the pitch in a deliberate attempt to stop the game.
He arrived by helicopter at Moor Farm appointed by Peter Gadsby and the consortium that had saved us from the clutches of SISU whom Jeremy Keith had tried to bring in to take over the club.
After half a dozen games or so we picked up and eventually made it into the higher echelons of the division. He signed some good players like Matt Oakley, Steve Howard, David Jones etc. he signed some dross too! Bob Malcolm, Mo Camara etc we had two decent keepers in Lee Grant and Lee Camp, but Billy decided to sign Stephen Bywater. It's interesting to see which two are currently playing regular first team football.
We made the play offs and ironically beating George Burley's Southampton on our way to Wembley.
In which has proven to be his finest hour, Billy Davies started his shenanigans telling the press that he didn't know if he was staying on at the club!
Of course he was the main architect of our disastrous season in the top flight. He spent £3.5m on Robert Earnshaw who he then continually left out of the side. Over three million for Claude Davis who must be ranked amongst the worst centre halves to wear the white of Derby. Another two million plus went on Kenny Miller. Billy was caught out! Out of his depth!
Rams fans were on the receiving end of countless jokes! Thank goodness twitter wasn't used then!
He got his much wanted contract extension, but within weeks was gone!
After a home 0-2 loss to Chelsea, a game in which we actually performed quite well, he was interviewed post match by BBC Radio Derby. Throughout the interview was calling for more investment in the playing staff. That's a fair request, but he stated that he hadn't seen the then Chairman Adam Pearson for six weeks, saying the chairman is a busy man.
Them accusations were refuted by Pearson and Billy got the boot!
He eventually found his way back into the game with our local rivals Nottingham Forest. However, he continually referred back to Derby and snipe after snipe about how he was treated by our club.
He did achieve getting our red rivals into two play off semi finals, but following a disagreement with the Late Nigel Doughty, a man who pumped in excess of £110m plus over many years into the club was sacked again.
He spent a long time away before finding work again. Nearly joining Blackpool, he opted for a return to Forest. Boosted by the new owner Fawaz Al-Hasawi he began spending and put together a very strong squad.
The circus then started. Billy stopped talking to the media and created problems for himself. Respected journalists like John Percy were ignored! In fact there's a sense of relief from Forest journalists like Daniel Taylor that he's gone!
His press conference after beating us was quite bizarre! Instead of talking about a good victory more digs at the media came from his mouth.
This Saturday sealed his fate and one will wonder if another club will employ him.
There's no doubting he does have a talent, but his ego and his confrontational style will not put him top of anyone's list to lead there club. Sure enough he had injuries galore on Saturday, but that starting eleven included more than one million pound player and had enough talent to make more of a game of it than they did. It's the managers job to choose and lift the team and it looked like he had lost the dressing room to me.
There's only one result in that case and it's the sack!
The typical snipes we endured like him saying that it should have been Preston that won that play off final are unforgivable! No respect for our club! Forest fans prepare yourself if he does land another job! Preston fans warned us!
It's ironic that his greatest moment was with the club he's derided ever since leaving!
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