KING Billy.

That is the exact term Craig Brown uses when detailing the way his former protégé, Billy Davies, was once addressed by supporters at Nottingham Forest before his second spell at the City Ground turned sour and surreal and ended with the sack.

Ask the former Scotland manager who is best placed to ride to the rescue of Rangers in their hour of need, though, and his answer is clear. In circumstances so indisputably dire, Sir Walter is the only man to call.

"If I were the chairman of Rangers, I would get down on my bended knee and beg Walter Smith to come back as manager," stated Brown.

"He's 66, but he certainly isn't too old. Look at Harry Redknapp and Sam Allardyce, who are still managing in the English Premier League.

"The greatest of them all, Sir Alex Ferguson, was still winning titles in his seventies.

"Walter is a football man and he knows Rangers inside out. He could take someone like Billy Davies, Terry Butcher or Stuart McCall to work alongside him."

The problem is that Smith, who gave up a role as chairman of the SPFL Championship side last year after branding the boardroom "highly-dysfunctional", does not come across as a man remotely interested in returning to the dug-out at Ibrox for a third spell.

He insists he is finished with management. He even feels uncomfortable about returning to the stadium as a spectator. His juiciest thoughts on what has been unfolding behind the scenes since he called it a day remain off-the-record.

Unless Smith performs the most spectacular of U-turns, we are looking at Davies and the like. Certain bookmakers have the 50-year-old as favourite for the manager's position and he has been hanging around the fringes for a while, although some sources insist he is not at the top of Rangers' list as an eventual replacement for Ally McCoist.

Davies' football credentials are fairly impressive. He won promotion with Derby County from the English Championship and took Preston North End and Forest to the play-offs. He has, however, developed a reputation for being able to start a fight in an empty house with the way that second period in Nottingham ended back in March proving most damaging.

Long-serving club staff were routinely sacked, journalists were banned, media representatives were filmed asking questions at conferences and Davies' cousin, a suspended solicitor, was brought in as his closest advisor. One rival chief executive was understood to have branded Forest "the Midlands version of North Korea".

Kenny Burns, a member of Forest's European Cup-winning sides of the late 1970s, is a Rangers fan. He has branded Davies a "divisive figure" and begged those in charge at Ibrox to rule him out of the running completely.

Brown took Davies to Preston as his assistant and also worked with him at Derby in a brief consultancy role. He accepts the one-time Rangers player can be outspoken and confrontational at times, but insists he is not the kind of troublesome individual Burns so clearly detests.

"Not in the dressing room, he's not," said Brown. "I was at Derby and Preston with him and he wasn't divisive then. He was first class.

"Billy's forthright. Maybe I like him because he was a little deferential to me. You don't like guys to be crawlers, but he was always decent and respectful.

"He's a great football guy and he's highly intelligent.

"There are a lot of Scottish managers have gone down to England and found it a struggle. Even Walter went to Everton and it was difficult, the same as Derek McInnes at Bristol City.

"Billy is the opposite. He went down there and excelled.

"I'd use one word to describe Billy Davies - outstanding. He's a brilliant football manager and I've seen them all at work.

"I don't want to be seen saying that he should get the job at Rangers, but the Championship in England has been a graveyard for a lot of Scottish managers. That's going way back to the late Tommy Burns when he was at Reading, Stuart McCall and Jim Jefferies at Bradford City and Craig Levein at Leicester City.

"He had Preston in the play-offs and got Derby up through the play-offs.

"Billy is a play-off expert. The chairman was in tears when he got Derby into the Premiership because it was worth £52m back then.

"He then went to Nottingham Forest and he was King Billy there."

McCoist, of course, remains Rangers royalty despite being sent out on gardening leave to end an extremely mixed period as manager. The team simply was not playing well enough under him. Failure to win even the Challenge Cup in three seasons in the lower leagues was unforgivable.

Brown is saddened by the weekend's events and believes McCoist will have taken the decision to leave partly to protect his five sons. Brown neglected his daughter and two sons as he built his career and knows the Ibrox icon is eager not to make the same mistakes.

"He's got young kids who are at the age where they could be getting a bit of stick at school," said the 74-year-old. "He's got a mother who is at every game, a wife and three young kids. He was quoted as saying the older boys can cope, but I read it was affecting the younger ones.

"I believe he's a family guy. He's a father first and foremost.

"I know I was an absentee father, but he's a proper father and it's hard if the kids are getting it at school. It upsets you.

"I think it's disappointing to see him go. When a guy goes from being a legend as a player to the manager, you want him to succeed.

"It was the same when Kenny Dalglish was at Celtic..

"I don't think Ally did badly. It's been quite unbelievable, terrible circumstances he's operated under.

"When you've managed at the top, it would be hard to go and manage Ayr United, for example, but he has the capability to stay in the game."