Back to Dunfermline for Thursday to prepare his new team (worst goal difference in the league as well as worst points total) for yesterday's Kilmarnock game. And then a quick hop on Aer Lingus last night to get into character again for Lansdowne Road this afternoon. It's probably safe to say that anyone crossing his path today would maybe be best advised not to offer him, say, a coffee in a Styrofoam cup or a BLT.

Truth is, though, you'd be hard pushed to find someone more suited to put order on the kind of chaotic week he's just had than Kenny himself. As someone who used to spend good portions of the National League off-season touring the big clubs of Europe to pick up training tips and guidelines, he once conceded that many of his ideas were worked out on trains and planes. Just him, his thoughts, and the world whizzing by outside. What travelling he's done through the week won't have been wasted.

There is part of Stephen Kenny's rise up the managerial ladder that appeals to the geek in all of us. Make no mistake about it, the man is a football nerd of the highest order. The Tribune had cause to ring him up one Thursday night around four years ago to make a quick, really-sorry-to-bother-you-Stephen, off-hand query about Glenn Crowe's ankle or some such and soon one thing led to another (the styles of defending in Serie B was touched on at one point . . . swear to God). Before you knew it, three quarters of an hour had passed and the manager of the team that would go on to win the league that year was still jaw-jawing away as if he had nothing (or, more to the point, nobody) more interesting to attend to. From that night on, he had a fan.

Nerd solidarity is what it was. And is. He's one of us, see. Just with more drive and vision and, okay, knowledge. He played four games on the old League of Ireland for Home FarmEverton after never making the grade with St Pat's. Four games? Press any football nerd in this country and after a while you'll squeeze out of him the fact that he secretly reckons that with the proper training, he'd have had four League of Ireland games in him. No sweat. Still might.

Kenny didn't just sit and talk about it, though. He went and followed the life. He took over the St Pat's under-21s and coached them to an AUL title in his first season. Then, at 27, he became the second youngest National League manager ever when he took charge of Longford Town. His record there was just about impeccable. Three years. One promotion. One FAI Cup final. One historic night of European football at Flancare Park.

And then he left. Bohemians were in trouble, just about treading water in the relegation zone of the Premier Division in mid-December 2001 and his was the radio that picked up the frequency of their distress signal. It was a measure of him and of Longford that a situation that looked like getting ugly for a while actually turned into one of the warmest scenes ever played out on a cold night in Longford. The week after he left, it so happened that the first Bohs match he was to take was in Flancare Park against Longford in the cup. Of course it was.

And instead of pelting him with rotten fruit or dog's abuse . . . and both were possibilities, given that there was even legal action in the air at the time . . . the main stand in Longford rose as one as he walked to the dug-out and gave him a standing ovation as the man in charge of the PA system played 'Fairytale Of New York'. There wouldn't have been a dry eye in the house if anyone had been able to actually squeeze out a tear before it froze on their cheek on what was an insanely cold evening.

He turned Bohemians around, of course.

Got them out of relegation dodge and won the cup that first season. Then won the league the following one, his first full campaign in charge, before slipping to runners-up the next.

The glory of his methods lay in their simplicity. He pared the Bohemians squad down to 16 full-time professionals from the 25 that had been there when he arrived and those who remained, he went about paring down a bit more. His mantra was that everything started with their fitness. He told them that he always regretted the fact that he'd never been good enough to be given the chance to dedicate his life to being a professional footballer. It wasn't that he wanted them to get themselves as fit as possible; it was more that the idea that they might not do so didn't really compute with him. By the time he left, three of the squad were qualified fitness instructors.

Leaving wasn't his choice. Defeat at home to Estonian side Levadia Tallinn in the Uefa Cup earned him the sack in July 2004, a measure of the change in attitudes and standards that had occurred at the club during his time there. He was annoyed and called the decision harsh but did so with the sanguinity of someone who would have had a fair idea he wouldn't be out of the scene for long.

Three weeks later, he took over a Derry City side that wasn't so much flirting with relegation as carrying out a full-blown affair with it in full view of the country. And just like before, he dragged them out of the mire.

And just like before, he had a serious rattle at the following year's league title, only just beaten to it by Cork City on a thrilling final Friday night. That was last year. This year, it took goal difference to deny them.

All in all, you sense that Dunfermline chairman John Yorkston has done his research pretty well on this one. Kenny has made it his speciality to take teams that are taking anxious peeks in the direction of the abyss and hauling them clear. Any former players of his would have smiled at the reports coming out of East End Park last week of the double sessions and his vow to improve the fitness of the players there. They'd have appreciated too his warning not to expect things to be turned around by Christmas. A lack of patience was never something he suffered from.

Dunfermline are in serious trouble and if they escape the drop it will be an achievement. Double it up with a win at Lansdowne Road this afternoon and he'll more than likely be a quiz question some day.

Truly, an achievement to warm the hearts of football nerds everywhere.