Steve Evans tended to take the jibes about his weight in good humour. But the advancing years coupled with his expanding waistline made it an issue that he was determined to confront. Four young grandchildren have a way of lending perspective.

“I want to be around when they are 25, 30,” Evans tells Sky Sports. “I want to see them have kids. Is that possible? Yeah, it is possible.” He has given himself a better chance by losing six-and-a-half stone of that weight in the months since leaving Rotherham.

A trip to a cardiologist sparked the change. “I was worried about myself,” he concedes, noting that the “stresses of everyday football management” had taken their toll. But it was a family decision, a conscious effort “to get healthier and fitter” than before.

During the course of an engaging two hours at his Peterborough home, Evans, 62, certainly comes across as a man transformed. He is fit “mentally and physically” and talks of this being the best he has felt in years as he trades stories about football’s biggest names.

But first, that new routine. “I do 50 to 70 lengths. Then I will do some biking. Then I will do the sauna. It is about two-and-a-half hours there [at the gym] before I head home and then there are very much planned meals for lunch and planned meals for dinner.”

He walks the dogs in the evening but the late nights are a thing of the past. “I go to bed early because I do not want to be in the fridge,” he says. “I would want a biscuit or some snacks but I am over that now. So very much it is about calorie-control management.”

Chasing 10th promotion

The hope is that if he can lose a little more weight and then maintain it from then on. “That will be the tough part to go through but I am looking forward to the challenge.” Evans was a professional footballer in his youth, after all. “Body is a temple,” he says.

His wife Sarah rolls her eyes at that particular line. She has heard it once or twice before. But the old twinkle is back in Evans’ own eyes and the message is clear. “Unfinished business,” in his words. Because family was only part of the reason for this fitness drive.

“I think nine promotions to me is an unlucky number. Ten is a good number. Football is adrenaline, isn’t it? It is a drug. And I want to be back in the everyday heat of the battle, whether that is on the training ground or at matches. I am missing that again now.”

Those previous promotions have come at five different clubs – Stamford, Boston, Crawley, Rotherham and Stevenage – and it is telling that his relationship with Rotherham chairman Tony Stewart remains strong despite his exit in March.

“I have spoken to him a lot since I came out and that friendship will be there forever. When I went back to Rotherham, there was an expectation because of the previous success there that it would just happen. We tried everything but it was not to be.

“The chairman knew it was a bit of a mishmash and would take time. But supporters turn up and pay their hard-earned money so you need to win football matches. It is a great club and we received great support. The fans there will always be brilliant people.”

Evans is held in high esteem at Stevenage too. Speaking to owner-chairman Phil Wallace and sporting director Leon Hunter in the summer, they revealed that they regard Evans’ period in charge as the catalyst for changing the culture at the club.

“The chairman felt there was a real gem there, a real diamond in Leon, who had a role to play but everything that he was bringing to the table was just being thrown away by the previous managers to me. I think you have to embrace sporting directors.

“It does not matter who brings a player to the table. If somebody rings you to tell you to watch a striker who is 17 years old and has just scored 50 goals in a division four leagues below, you should be sending someone straight away, that is my mentality.”

It is a lesson learned from Sir Alex Ferguson. Evans was once in his company when the legendary Manchester United manager was canvassing opinion from the ground staff. It was an eye-opener for him, a reminder that the very best tend to be open to new ideas.

“I just think it is about being open minded,” explains Evans. “You do not have to agree on every single decision, but you do tend to find that the successful head coaches, the successful clubs, are the ones who get their recruitment right and have that alignment.”

‘Next best in my lifetime’

On the subject of successful coaches, Evans has a soft spot for pal David Moyes and is thrilled by his strong start to the season at Everton. “A brilliant appointment. They could contend for Europe, he is that good.” But he rates Pep Guardiola as the best around now.

“The next best in my lifetime after Sir Alex. I have been fortunate enough to watch him on the training ground. It is a gift what he has brought to English football. But if you lose top players and do not replace them with top players, you do not get the same results.”

He has followed Ruben Amorim’s travails and what he calls “the strangeness” at Grimsby. “You do not get the Manchester United job unless you are a very gifted manager. But playing Mason Mount completely out of position to keep the shape?”

He adds: “We can all say we are going to be 3-5-2 or 4-3-3 and play high and wide. We can all have ideas but we cannot all play like City played a few years ago. Only they have ever done that, hence their success. My style has always been to assess the players.”

Still, the early weeks of the season have him sympathising with those under pressure. “No doubt they are going home at night having not won, sitting in the lounge at two in the morning, the family asleep upstairs, and trying to prepare the next game,” he says.

“Supporters are more demanding than they have ever been and then you have these very wealthy people at the top who are normally hugely successful in business. That is why they can afford a football club and it is the only thing in their life not going right.

“If you are winning, the pressure can feel less, every manager will tell you that. But the pressure just builds. And the biggest part is the pressure that comes from within. I have high expectations of myself when I go into a football club that I can turn things around.”

‘I am ready to make a difference’

It is the undercurrent of the entire conversation, really. For all the pressure, for all the low points, for all the strain that it places on people, Evans just cannot resist the game’s lure. He wants back in. “I have got a clear aim,” he insists. “I will have another chapter.”

Not as a sporting director, although he believes the role could suit his skills in the future. And not watching games from the stands as he has been doing of late. “They always put me right next to the refereeing assessors.” That old foe. “We have had a lot of banter.”

It is on the touchline where Evans wants to be. In truth, he has felt ready for a while. There were talks with Motherwell but it was too soon. “I had started this journey of getting healthier. I sat down with my family and they wanted me to stick with that.”

Now, it is different. “I am ready to make a difference to a team. I do not need to rush because we are fortunate as a family that we can wait for the right one to come. But I will get that feeling and then, as my wife and family know, we will be down the track.”