The bust stands at the top of the stairs.

It peeks down over a clamour of activity as people of all ages sweep though a set of impressive doors, bringing the chill and the noise of Glasgow into the decorous surroundings of a private club.

The head of WM Mann is immortalised for the ages, oblivious to the hubbub. The temptation is took at the inscription, to search for some indication of why this smiling, cherubic figure is of significance.

It is, though, easier to ask a restless Billy Mann. It is, after all, the 80-year-old force of nature who has been rendered in bronze. It is too the frankly loquacious Mr Mann who is standing beside me.

The strangeness of interviewing someone next to his statue is quickly dismissed. Jostling, cajoling and quipping, Mr Mann, as he is known at the Western Baths, leads one away from his likeness with almost unseemly haste, pointing out the curiosities of a marvellous building, and clattering out financial figures as if he is a speaking abacus.

It is apparent within seconds of meeting Billy Mann that he is a singular figure, worthy of further scrutiny. His significance, though, stretches far beyond a pile of bricks, however elegant, in the West End.

He is the Mann who saved the baths. The Western Baths in Hillhead would have crumbled without both his energy and his wisdom, particularly regarding matters of cash. But he is also the businessman who helped every sports club in Scotland financially. He was once described as ''the largest indirect financier of sport'' in Britain. But his heart, perhaps even his soul belongs to the Western Baths where he has been secretary since 1977

It is, perhaps, appropriate to investigate this role before discussing his involvement in wider sport in Scotland. It is also necessary to wander around the Western Baths and see how a private members' club in the West End of Glasgow has lessons for other sport clubs throughout the land that are struggling as tastes change and financial realities bite.

Both duties are best performed in the presence of Mr Mann who has the aspect of Clarence Oxbody, the angelic character in It's A Wonderful Life. Mr Mann seems always to appear on one's shoulder with an inspiring tale or with details of a fascinating tally in the ledger of life.

He switches from accounts of cricket matches to testimonies of rugby under-achievement to discussions of artists with the sort of breeziness that should not be mistaken as a mark of the dilettante. There is the steel of unalloyed business acumen behind the jovial exterior.

But first a limited introduction. Mr Mann is honorary secretary of the Western Baths Club, established in Cranworth Street, Hillhead, in 1876. This is a statement of fact but it does not even hint at his celebrity or importance in a fine building just off Byres Road.

On a beautiful if wintry morning in 2015, the Victorian edifice can look out proudly on to the West End with a stock market investment worth £3.7m backing its substantial presence with a hefty financial clout . More importantly, about 2,500 people find it a haven from everyday life.

But once it was all so different. Dissolve the scene and bring in Clarence Oxbody, sorry Mr Mann, as an angel of mercy.

On a warm day in July 1999, part of the Western Club's roof collapsed. It was perhaps a sign from the heavens, most of which were now visible from the depths of the club. It followed a year when membership was down to 293 (of which only 21 were quaintly described as ladies), a deficit of £7,056 was about to be posted, and an institution spanning just more than a century seemed to be breathing its last chlorine-tinged fumes.

It was saved by Mr Mann. He may protest at this, but that does not mean it is not true. He may and indeed does splutter that ''this is not a one-man club or a one-man story'' but the renaissance of the Western Baths is largely, if not exclusively down to him.

He is a Glasgow man of a recognisable type: a former pupil of Glasgow Academy, a qualified chartered accountant, a cricketer, a rugby player. He was more than decent in the flannels, a solid opening batsman and an adept wicket keeper who went on to become president of the Scottish Cricket Union. One senses he does not have much time for football yet he has supported a very successful boy's team that play in a modern sports hall his wherewithal created.

Mr Mann is thus a lover of sports but, much more importantly to the very existence of the Western Baths, he was and is a very successful businessman.

It is this combination of sporting interest and financial acumen that forms Mr Mann and has shaped the Western Baths.

It now sits contentedly in the West End with more than 2,000 members and with its future all but assured.

This was not the scene when Mr Mann, who had been coming to the club since before the Second World War, decided something had to be done. And it was. He had set up his investment company in 1970 and it had become almost immediately successful. "I started it with £6,750 of my own money,'' he says. I intreject lamely that this would be a lot of money in 1970. ''It was to me,'' he quips before racing through the early years of the resurrection of the Western Baths.

Basically, Mr Mann loaned the club money and found investors who were content to take £2,500 shares that would be worth a fortune today except every shareholder has told Mr Mann that if they cashed them in they would only want their original investment returned. Save one investor: he left the holding to the club on his death.

Mr Mann also negotiated new contracts with suppliers and changed the club from a swimming baths to a sporting club.

He then embarked on a campaign with Alex Kilgour of Kirkcaldy Cricket Club that would save millions for a nation's sporting clubs. They lobbied successfully for rates relief on amateur clubs. "Alex had the contacts. He could get in to see anybody,'' Mr Mann remembers with a chuckle. ''Then I would do much of the talking.'' The rates relief thus allows clubs to survive. He also negotiated charitable status for community sports clubs from Gordon Brown when the Fifer was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr Mann also campaigned successfully for the abolition of VAT on sports club subscriptions.

While doing all of this, he built up his investment business to substantial levels. "We lend money to businesses basically. I am all but retired now. I go in three times a week but one of my sons runs it. I owned all the share in 2009 but I gave them to family, some to a charitable trust,'' he says.

''I suppose it did quite well,'' he says, before smiling yet again. "When I stepped to the side it had gross assets of £33m and shareholder funds of £17m. It maybe has gone down a bit since the financial crisis.'' There is a pause and then the chuckle: "We are still solvent.''

So why did this driven, successful businessman become so involved in a club. "Purely selfish reasons, I suppose, I came here three morning a week for a swim and I wanted it to continue,'' he says.

There is, of course, more to it than that. Mr Mann will not say so but he must have relished the challenge of building something both in terms of the physical refurbishment but also to keep a part of his past alive.

This matter of history intrigues him. "It is the second oldest private members' baths in the world,'' he says. And what is the oldest? ''The Arlington baths,'' he says of the other private club in Glasgow. "They predate us by six years, as they opened in 1870. There used to be a terrible rivalry but I got rid of all that. We discuss matters of mutual interest very cordially.''

By now we have tramped through a sports hall, traversed a tiled mural designed by Alasdair Gray, resident West End genius, yomped through a restaurant, almost jogged past massage rooms and mercifully come to rest in his office.

There is a moment for one last question. Did he have any regret about spending so much time at the club?

"No, no,'' he says briskly. ''It's been so much fun and look at how it has all turned out.'

His energy is undimmed. His legacy assured. The Western Club and bust.