HE will be (whisper it) 32 in three weeks’ time. He has just signed a three-year deal for a third tour at Kilmarnock. Kris Boyd, it must be said, is looking leaner and trimmer again after a wasted year at Rangers, when this prolific goalscorer’s form disappeared amid the dysfunctional mess at that club.

This will be Boyd’s 11th season in Scotland’s top-flight, starting this Saturday. He remains – despite Henrik Larsson’s prodigious presence among us – the greatest poacher of our recent SPL, on 167 league strikes to Larsson’s 158. The mystery is, Boyd has had goals pouring out of him, despite, as he puts it, “my various career lows when I couldn’t get a game”.

Does he feel sharp and ready, back in the famous Killie stripes? “Aye, I do,” he says. “I’ve already scored a bunch of pre-season goals and I feel sharp and up for it. Last year at Rangers might prove a blessing in disguise, in that I was in and out of the team. I almost had a break from regular football last season, and I definitely feel rejuvenated now.”

Boyd speaks pointedly as one who, even when approaching 32, feels he has to endlessly prove a point, both to himself and to his many doubters.

“I’ve been written off many times,” he says. “When I came back from America [and a dismal spell with Portland Timbers in 2012] they said, ‘Ach, here’s Boyd, playing out his career with Kilmarnock.’ But I had then – and I still have – the drive and determination to prove to myself that I can still go and score goals. The day I lose that motivation is the day I’ll quit.

“I’m eight goals away from scoring 100 career goals for Kilmarnock. I think it would be a remarkable achievement, considering I’ve already done it with Rangers. It is well within reach of me, and I’d love to put that one to bed. Not many strikers can say they’ve scored 100 goals for two clubs.”

Last season, by his own admission, was a personal failure, though Boyd points out that quite a lot appeared to be malfunctioning all over Rangers. It was just the latest in this striker’s intriguing sequence of good times and bad, though he admits that life suddenly feels fresh and motivating again.

“There’s much more to life than living inside the Rangers bubble,” says Boyd. “I’ve been there, I’ve done it, and I’ve scored my goals over the years.

“I’ve had career highs and lows. There is nothing worse than training all week and not getting a game at the end of it, and I’ve been there over a number of seasons with different clubs.

“I came through the Kilmarnock system, I was scoring every week, the same continued at Rangers, and then I got myself in the Scotland set-up, and got goals for my country as well. So I’ve had real highs.

“My biggest regret was that it didn’t work for me in England. At Middlesbrough, the moment Gordon Strachan got the sack, I knew it wasn’t going to work out. I then went and had a great spell under Billy Davies at Nottingham Forest, scoring goals and feeling I was hitting my form at that level. But, with Forest missing out on promotion, and Billy then losing his job, my move to Forest couldn’t happen.

“But you know what? Of the various bad experiences I’ve had, I wouldn’t change any of them. Because they have made me the person I am today.”

Boyd grew up a Rangers fan in Ayrshire, in the village of Tarbolton, but Kilmarnock has always had what he calls “a special place in my heart”. It was the club that reared him from 12 years old and honed Boyd’s hungry scoring appetite. Famously, when he joined Rangers in 2006, he handed back to Killie his £20,000 cut of the transfer fee from Ibrox.

“I just felt Kilmarnock needed the cash for their youth development. It was basically a ‘thank you’ for what the club had done for me. I felt it was the right thing.

“When I was a wee guy growing up I remember my dad once saying that my grandpa would give someone his last pound. It stuck with me. I think if you can be generous with people, then people in turn will look after you.”

The subject of money reminded me that Boyd, after everything, must be pretty well-heeled. Surely, after his various lucrative contracts – in Scotland, England, Turkey and America – he needn’t actually work again. It must be an enviable position to be in.

“Put it this way, I’ve looked after what I’ve got,” he replies. “I’m not going to sit here and say I’m not going to work again. That’s not the person I am. I like being out there. I love football, I like speaking about it, I like coaching it, I like playing it. I know about the majority of things that are going on in football – I got to my bed at night and I’m still reading about it and wanting to learn. So, whenever my playing career finishes, I don’t think I’ll be finished with football.

“I’m not motivated by money. My main aim is the challenge ahead, and asking myself, ‘how can this challenge benefit me as a player or as a person?’ If it was all about money I’d have left Rangers long before I did in 2010. There was a £3.5m offer in for me from Birmingham City, with big wages on top, but I wanted to stay at Rangers and win things with Rangers. I want to work in my life, I want to crack on.”

Boyd is currently doing his UEFA Pro licence, and is back coaching Kilmarnock’s Under-17s, with a determined goal of becoming a coach or manager one day.

“It has been an excellent experience under Jim Fleeting and Donald Park, and a huge learning curve for me,” he says. “It has been a great education.

“If there is an opportunity for me to be a manager in the future, I want to be ready to step in. I don’t want to have to play catch-up. I’m not saying doing this course will make you a manager – time will tell on that – but it definitely helps you. I want to learn, and I want to push myself.”