IF STAN COLLYMORE succeeds in his aim to return to the pinnacle of English football, it will be a comeback to make Lazarus resemble a hypochondriac who shrugged off a thigh strain.

Collymore started 2005 by fleeing to France and contemplating suicide. Later last year he told The Times that he had no intention of playing again. He spoke fondly of his salad days at Southend United 14 years ago, but dismissed the sterile stadiums and a lack of fun in the top flight. Now, after a 5½-year sabbatical, he has said that he is coming back — and “not to Rag Arse Rovers”.

Collymore’s claim that, within a month, he will be a physical match for any striker invites scepticism. It is not so much his age — at 35 he is younger than Gary Speed, Chris Powell, Arjan de Zeeuw and the grandaddy of them all, Teddy Sheringham — but the suspicion remains that dogging in Cannock and brawling with the Bath rugby union first team may not be the ideal preparation for a renaissance. And after the dives and claims of bungs, does football need more trouble? In recent years, Collymore has also had to deal with a grilling on Richard & Judy and an appearance with Vanilla Ice and Paul Daniels on a reality television show in which David Beckham’s former personal assistant masturbated a pig. So can it work? Collymore insists that sports scientists have told him that he can come back fitter than he was in his goalscoring pomp at Nottingham Forest in the mid-1990s. That was the era when, according to Stuart Pearce, his team-mate, Collymore would say that his granny was ill and bunk off training. “Stan is Stan and will do stupid things,” Pearce said. Many will think that this is just the latest.

Anyone who has talked to Collymore knows that the flipside is an intelligent, articulate man who is subject to cruel bouts of depression. It is unfortunate for him that football is so mired in machismo that it has no sympathy for mental illness, but that is another barrier to a successful comeback. Indeed, it will take a desperate manager to take a gamble on Collymore.

His most recent performances of note came in 2000 during a brief spell at Leicester City. By the time he left for Bradford City, he had broken a leg and doused a hotel bar with a fire extinguisher.

When he moved to Real Oviedo in 2001, he said that he should be in “tip-top condition” within a month, but he retired soon afterwards and his subsequent radio career collapsed when the media went digging into dogging. An attempt to be appointed the manager of Southend failed and he was last seen steaming up the windows with Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2. Many will think that this is similarly implausible and that, as clever ideas go, basically it stinks.

Collymore’s agent, Simon Kennedy, insists that there is still interest in a player who has fetched close to £20 million in transfer fees and who might have signed for Manchester United had Frank Clark, the Forest manager, not had flu when Sir Alex Ferguson phoned.

Kennedy claims that a Barclays Premiership club and five Coca-Cola Championship teams have expressed an interest in Collymore over the past year, but he was unimpressed by an attempt to entice his client to Australia last month for a four-match guest stint with Newcastle Jets. Kennedy said that they have higher aspirations.

It will be an inspirational story if it works out, but one suspects that Rag Arse Rovers are breathing a sigh of relief.

UPHILL STRUGGLE TO PEAK FITNESS

STAN COLLYMORE’S hopes of reinventing himself as a golden oldie fly in the face of medical science. Dr Jonathan Folland, a specialist in exercise physiology from Loughborough University, said that his age and the decline of his condition during a five-year sabbatical leave him with a mountain to climb.

“There is a decline in physical performance from the mid-20s onwards,” Folland said. “Then there is the issue of being out of the game for so long.

“Unless he has been training hard and playing football behind closed doors, it will be hard for him. Not only do you lose speed and stamina, but you will put on some fat and lose some muscle.

“Your agility and skills will also be diminished by not playing. It takes years to get to a pinnacle of physical fitness. Steven Gerrard, for example, has improved over the last five years through constant training.”

However, Folland accepted that the lack of serious injuries to his knees and back would work in Collymore’s favour on the comeback trail.

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