If you are a football manager, the moral seems to be, do not go near Kris Boyd.

Gordon Strachan signed him for Middlesbrough in July 2010 and was sacked three months later. At Nottingham Forest, Billy Davies lasted three months after taking Boyd on loan. In Turkey, Bulent Uygun of Eskisehirspor lasted 10 days after signing the striker before being taken off to a Turkish clink for alleged match-fixing. Boyd went to Portland Timbers and John Spencer got sacked. Boyd went to Kilmarnock and Kenny Shields got sacked.

What is going on? Is this prolific goalscorer (when the mood takes him) a Jonah? The slagheap of fired coaches in Boyd's career to date rather sums up a chaotic three years in the life of this 30-year-old. And yet he is back, bruised but unbowed, playing for Kilmarnock, his first club, and dreaming again of pulling on a Scotland jersey. After all he has been through, Boyd's resolve and spirit are impressive. You just cannot put him down.

"I'm happy again; not something that has always been the case these last three years," he says. "I'm fit, I'm playing and I'm getting some goals. Despite everything that has happened, I know the level I am capable of playing at. Not many players can score 20-25 goals season after season but I've done that at Kilmarnock and Rangers. My aim is to get back to that form and, I hope, to get back into the Scotland squad."

The gods had it in for Boyd since that day in the summer of 2010 when he decided to leave Rangers. He was 26, established as the SPL's record goalscorer (having overtaken Henrik Larsson), and his international record at one point, seven goals in 14 games, also looked decent. Boyd was wanted elsewhere in Britain, and for a hefty pay. When he finally left Ibrox for Middlesbrough it was the start of a very lucrative and - equally and contradictorily - disastrous three years in his career.

"I still feel I've been fortunate," he says. "Leaving Rangers was a big decision but I wanted to give England a crack. Back then quite a few clubs were interested in me, and I didn't want to finish my career with regrets, with knowing I'd never gone and given new things a try."

He was scarcely five months on Teesside before the wheels fell off. Strachan was sacked, Tony Mowbray came in, and Boyd quickly spotted what was to become a recurring theme for him - writing on the wall. "The whole episode made me pissed off with football," he says. "Under Tony I never really got a crack of the whip. I knew I wasn't going to play - I wasn't his type of player. I had to get my love back for football. It reached a stage where I thought, 'I need to try somewhere else', even if that meant going to a place you might never have thought of."

There would be only a brief respite in the odyssey of misery. He had a successful three-month loan period at Forest, where he scored six in nine games, and featured as they narrowly failed in the Championship play-offs. "I would probably have signed that summer had Billy not then been sacked," said Boyd, before letting out a big sigh. "And so came Turkey . . ."

When he signed for Eskisehirspor in the summer of 2011 the phrase "frying pan into the fire" did not do it justice. The club was in ferment, with Bulent becoming embroiled in a match-fixing scandal. How quickly did the move start to unravel? "As soon as my plane landed," Boyd says. "At the time I had really wanted to go abroad. I looked at the majority of British players who have gone, and most had come back better players.

"Turkey is a great country, but there was obvious corruption going on. Our manager was lifted by the police. He had done fantastically, turning them from relegation fodder into challenging for Europe. It was in between two major cities - two hours from Istanbul, two hours from Ankara - and I felt it would be right for me. I hoped to go there, play for a season or two, and come back a better player. But the whole place was in uproar, and then my wages row kicked in. I was a long way away from my family, and the next thing I knew, I wasn't getting paid. In that situation, you don't hang around."

So we reach January 2012: next stop the USA. Portland Timbers, coached by Spencer, signed Boyd on yet another lucrative contract, this time for two years. But by this point the striker had hardly played for five months, was unfit, and then picked up a groin injury. Capping it all - as per usual - Spencer was sacked.

"I had a real problem with my fitness," says Boyd. "I'd never had a decent pre-season for 18 months, and when I got to Portland we were just weeks away from games. I know the kind of body I have, I've never shied away from it. I need to build up, I need a full pre-season to get going and I knew I was lagging behind. For the first time in my career, I was missing more chances than I was scoring. Lacking in confidence has never affected me but by this point, after all I'd been through, I wasn't myself. I was snatching at chances, I was probably over-eager to do well.

"I'd heard that my contract was being terminated. It was time to come home. Get back to Scotland, get settled, get playing again, and get scoring goals once more."

Now back with Kilmarnock on a one-year deal, Boyd insists that the last three years have not been a total waste. "I've learned a lot and I feel I am a better footballer, genuinely. The whole Turkish thing was a culture shock but I've come through it. I tried to understand a bit about the Muslim world, which was totally different to me. Sometimes you need to see another culture to realise what you've got, and realise there is a lot more to life than football. It has been a difficult experience for me but I've learned a lot."

Perversely, at the end of all this, having been awarded a series of lucrative contracts, Boyd is probably set up for life financially. "All that has been pretty well documented," he says ruefully. "My American wages were published, the Turkey deal was never out of the press, and even Rangers let public what they would supposedly be offering me. I'm not going to sit here and say I've not done well - I have. But I'd rather have had the money but also have played many, many more games."

The challenge now, he says, is to get back into a Scotland squad. The last of Boyd's 18 caps was earned against Liechtenstein three years ago. "I'll not be happy until I know I'm not getting picked for Scotland because other strikers are doing better. That's my aim. I don't want to spend the next three or four years just going through the motions. I want to be back to where I was, in contention to play for Scotland."