HYPERBOLE is rife in sport journalism – and I’m as guilty as anyone.

Saves are rarely world class, tackles seldom heroic, or first touches actually sublime.

But that’s the game we play and I’m too old to change my ways now.

I’ve certainly played fast and loose with the word legend. And Wanderers fans are quick to pull me up on it too.

Yet I doubt I’ll get many angry emails if I apply the phrase to Kevin Davies, who hung up his boots on Friday after 22 years in the game.

What actually makes a legend is subjective. Eddie Hopkinson, for example, will probably forever be etched in the Bolton history books for his longevity, or Bruce Rioch for the impact he made in changing the face of the club forever.

But true football legends, in my view at least, are made when a player’s character transcends what he did on the pitch. They become part of the town’s fabric; it’s property. And that is why Davies deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Nat Lofthouse or John McGinlay.

Aptly, Davies announced his retirement on the same day – September 4 – as Lofthouse originally signed for Bolton, back in 1939.

Comparisons in style can be drawn between the two barrel-chested strikers but so too their passion for their home town, in Davies's case adopted.

Lofthouse’s fundraising efforts to keep Wanderers alive in their darkest days cements a legacy that tells you exactly why there is a bronze statue of the great man outside the doors of the Macron Stadium.

Davies’s impact on Bolton can be seen in the blossoming junior football leagues, for which he has worked tirelessly in the last few years, and in any number of sporting organisations around the town that has benefited from the charity work of KiDsofBolton.

Like McGinlay, he captures a zeitgeist. His brutal style summed up an era, and his fierce loyalty for Bolton made him a figure of pantomime hate for everyone outside the town borders.

Next week it will be 10 years since Sam Allardyce’s team made their first step into European competition against Lokomotiv Plovdiv. How time flies.

I’m sure Kev won’t mind me saying but there were a few more naturally gifted players in that squad but few who gave more to the cause, especially when you take into consideration 10 years of service.

My own memories of his career are all Bolton based, but from completely opposite ends of the spectrum.

On one hand I remember the sheer delight of watching him score against Birmingham City in the FA Cup quarter-final and nearly bashing my head on the low-slung press box at St Andrews.

On the other, I recall sitting in the bowels of Wembley after the semi-final defeat against Stoke City, Davies shaking with rage as he tried to figure out what had just gone on.

After his one and only England appearance the media was clamouring to speak with him in the Wembley mixed zone. Microphones were pointed at him in all directions, yet with typical loyalty Kev stopped to speak with The Bolton News, probably knowing we were on a tight deadline. Probably.

He would always be the one the club turned to after a heavy defeat, knowing he was a safe pair of hands with the media; except that one time.

In 2010 I ended up having to write him a character reference for a disciplinary hearing when the comments I printed about referee Mark Clattenburg landed him in hot water with the Football Association.

And I also remember trying to console his wife Emma standing in the club’s reception, children in tow, with tears rolling down her face on the day he was forced to say goodbye to the club just over two years ago.

How Wanderers handled his departure – which was strung out agonisingly over three or four months – will be a constant source of frustration for as long as I’m breathing.

Good advice was ignored, and what should have been a chance for the club to say thank you turned descended into pettiness.

Thankfully, time is a good healer and while his time at Preston ended in similar disappointing circumstances, being able to bow out at Wembley in a play-off final is not something many players get to decide.

I now wait with baited breath to see if his long-awaited testimonial becomes a reality.

Super Kev’s name still gets sung on the Wanderers terraces and I have no doubt it will do for many years to come. There is a reason – as Babe Ruth once said: “Heroes get remembered but legends last a lifetime.”