The challenge of reviving Wolverhampton Wanderers' fortunes seems all too appropriate for Dave Jones. In attempting to rebuild this once great football club, banishing some famous ghosts along the way, he is also attempting a more personal resurrection by exorcising those spectres that threatened to drag him in the direction of tragedy.
Ten months on from being cleared of child-abuse charges, Jones has guided Wolves to the top of the First Division table. Victory over second-placed Crystal Palace this afternoon would give further impetus to the belief that, this time, they really are going to do it. Football is full of sleeping giants but the Molineux club represents the dozing daddy of them all, a monster that has slumbered like some Black Country mountain for half a century.
It was in the 50s, under the trenchant trilby of Stan Cullis, the Iron Manager, that Wolves enjoyed their finest hour. But the shadow of Cullis, who led the club to three league championships, two FA Cups and a string of notable victories in Europe, hangs over Molineux to this day. And it is 18 years since the club last played in the top division.
Wolves have enjoyed every advantage: tradition, money, a large support base and experienced management. But, to amend a well-known saying, all that's gold has not glittered. The club whose motto reads "Out of darkness cometh light" has remained, doggedly, in the twilight of the First Division.
Winning a place in the Premiership proved a Sisyphean task for recent managers Graham Turner, Graham Taylor, Mark McGhee and Colin Lee. The appropriate collective noun might be a "sack" of managers; between them they gave more excuses than Railtrack.
But under Jones, Wolves's fifth manager in seven seasons, there is fresh belief that the Holy Grail can be seized.
"I don't know why other managers failed," says Jones, who cut his managerial teeth with Stockport County before establishing his reputation with Southampton. "The last one to enjoy any success was probably John Barnwell. Graham Taylor is a brilliant manager as well as a decent man and, if he'd been given longer, he might have done the job. But now it's my turn to have a bash.
"When I came here I found a lot of people living in the past. And I upset them by telling them so. Billy Wright won't win me promotion. And how is Steve Bull going to help me? Let's put all the great names in the museum, treasure the memories and move on. When I came here I went through the place with a fine toothcomb. And I decided it needed a complete overhaul, top to bottom." Jones has spent £7m sterling, bringing in such experienced players as Colin Cameron (Hearts), Nathan Blake (Blackburn), Mark Kennedy (Manchester City) and Shaun Newton (Charlton).
"I've changed 80 per cent of the team I inherited," he says. "Joleon Lescott, Lee Naylor and Kevin Muscat are the only ones left. I've let some very good pros leave. But we had to move on. The forward line is all new and so is the midfield.
"We weren't going to go very far by looking for free transfers and Bosman-ruling players. It would take a bit of money and, once I identified the players, the board have backed me. But this is no quick fix. I've been careful to bring in players in their mid-twenties who could be here for a long time. I'm building foundations. I signed a three-year contract with no get-out clauses."
Jones not only had to put the club's rich history in its place; he had to dispel the cynicism of repeated failure. "I had to get rid of all the negativity. When we went top this season there was talk of false dawns. People said we got there too quickly. But in this game you have to take everything you can get." It was many years ago that Alex Ferguson picked out Jones, now 45, as one of the best young managers in the land.
"Alex has said some kind things about me. For me, along with Bill Shankly, Brian Clough, Kenny Dalglish and Howard Kendall, he is one of the five managers I most admire." But after almost 12 months out of the game Jones was this year faced with the prospect of giving up management.
Indeed, what makes the Jones story so poignant is that only a few months ago he was taken to the edge of a personal abyss.
"I worked so hard to become a Premiership manager and it was took away from me. It cost me, in terms of my contract and bonuses and reputation as a Premiership manager. But that wasn't the worst part of it. The whole thing caused the death of my father, who died before the verdict was reached. And what I will never forgive the authorities for is taking away our innocence as a family.
"I moved into a world I knew nothing about, a world of police and private investigators. It was like going into a nasty book. I was frightened and embarrassed. I didn't know what would happen and I didn't have any control over it. They could have taken my family away from me at any time.
"The only people who suffered were my own children. They were not protected. The youngest, Georgia, is only seven and didn't have a clue what was going on. She thought I was buying another player because that's normally the only reason why the press come round taking pictures. But I don't know how Chloe, Dannielle and Lea coped. And my wife, Ann, doesn't believe anything that anyone tells her now.
"I was brought up to believe in the police, and the law, but that was all chipped away. The law failed me. I just couldn't understand why I was sitting there when they had all the evidence to prove my innocence. The really frightening thing is the authorities haven't changed. They don't want to know.
They don't want to listen. They just plod along. That's why, a couple of weeks ago, I went to Milton Keynes and spoke in front of the police, social services, child lines . . . the lot." He has not criticised Southampton in public but he was deeply disappointed by his former club's decision not to stand by him and, instead, to give his job to Glenn Hoddle.
"I had a very good relationship with the chairman Rupert Lowe. I still do. But the club let 12 people decide my future. I haven't been back to Southampton since and I won't be going again until we play them." Jones says he is angry but not bitter. But maybe he says he is not bitter a little too often.
