'I might not have got through it' - Duncan Ferguson on Barlinnie hell

The Herald Scotland

10-05-2025

'I had a disaster today,' he begins. 'The fob in my car … the battery ran out. I had to walk to the garage and get them to run me back to the car.'
I'd say he's had worse days.
Because the boy from Stirling was always a source of good copy. From his teenage days at Dundee United, his big-money transfer to Rangers then his years at Everton, where he became something of a club legend, and his run-ins with manager Ruud Gullit at Newcastle United (run-ins with managers being something of a theme in his career), Ferguson has been a headline-maker wherever he has been.
Rangers striker Duncan Ferguson against Partick Thistle in 1993 (Image: SNS Group) In the early years of his career in Scotland he was notoriously labelled 'Duncan Disorderly' for his run-ins with the police and eventually ended up being sent to Barlinnie for 44 days, the first football player to serve time for a clash on the football field.
But that was 30 years ago now. A lot of water has flown under Stirling Bridge since then. The Duncan Ferguson sitting in his home in Liverpool is a 53-year-old family man who doesn't drink. But he does talk. There's a lot to talk about.
He's ageing well, by the way. Still lean. He looks like he could pull on a pair of boots and turn out for Everton tomorrow. You imagine any defender playing today might still feel a jolt of fear if they saw him looming up out of the corner of their eye.
Ferguson has just written his memoir. Big Dunc, in conjunction with the football journalist Henry Winter. The reason we're talking. It's a good reason. The book is honest to a fault about Ferguson's own failings - and those of others - as it charts his career.
It covers the fall-outs (his relationship with his manager at United, Jim McLean, was explosive from the off), the fights and the injuries that plagued his playing days, as well as the goals and the glory.
'When I played I was good, but I never played enough,' Ferguson suggests today. 'Even now my career is better than most people's, absolutely. But I never played enough. I should have had bigger numbers because I should have played another 200, 300, 400 games.
'The reason why I never is because I had 10 operations, I got suspended ... Or something like that,' he adds, laughing. Well, yes, eight red cards in his Everton career. A Premier League record he shares with Patrick Vieira and Richard Dunne.
Duncan Ferguson with Everton (Image: SNS Group)
There are a few laughs in the book. But there's also a thread of anger that runs through it. Ferguson feels he was poorly treated in his younger days by the press, by the SFA and by the courts. He was, he would be the first to admit, often his own worst enemy, but the fact that he ended up in prison still feels hugely unjust to him.
The book reads, I suggest, like the work of someone who had a lot to get off their chest.
'Yes, absolutely. Obviously I was a wee bit bitter towards how it happened towards me when I was younger. I felt I was a wee bit hard done by with the local press up there.' When he says 'there', he means Scotland, in case there's any doubt. I guess he's a proper Anglo now.
The legend of Duncan Ferguson began when he started making a name for himself at Dundee United. In his hometown of Stirling he would be recognised every time he went out. And sometimes targeted. There were regular run-ins while he was standing in the taxi rank at Stirling Train Station waiting to go home after a night on the town. He once headbutted a policeman and on another occasion punched a man on crutches. In all, Ferguson would pick up four charges for assault over the years.
'I just defended myself,' he says now. 'I was young, between 16 and 19. When I went into Rangers I had minders with me. Walter [Rangers manager Walter Smith] advised me to get minders. I did that. That stopped the trouble. Because all of a sudden when people wanted to mouth off there was someone to go through. It stopped. It was potentially you going through someone else to get to me. People didn't want to do that. That stopped that part of it.
'And when I went to Liverpool they loved me. I didn't need minders. It's a different type of city. There's no Rangers and Celtic. Yes, there's Liverpool and Everton, but they're all together so all the wee firms, all the wee close-knit communities, are mixed. It wasn't: 'My mates are all Rangers', or 'My mates are all Celtic'. They're all mixed, so there was never any problem.
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'I never had one bit of trouble in Liverpool in my whole life, other than that stupid drink driving offence.'
Ah yes, he got caught over the limit on the night before he made his Everton debut.
He admits he was 'daft' in his younger years, but he is still quietly seething about his spell in Barlinnie. It all started when he clashed with the Raith Rovers player John McStay during a game at Ibrox in April 1994. Rangers were cruising to victory when Ferguson tussled with McStay. He appeared to headbutt the Raith player. Ferguson says he barely touched him and the referee Kenny Clark took no action on the pitch.
But after the game things kicked off. Ferguson was on probation at the time for another assault and he remains convinced that the Scottish press goaded McStay into making something of the incident.
'I felt that they pushed McStay into saying it was a headbutt,' he tells me. The press, he argues, were accusing McStay of diving to goad him.
'And he said, 'I never dived. He connected with me.' That was it. They got their headline then and pushed that. I was a bit upset by that.'
'I don't know if I was right. They're just doing their job at the end of the day.'
Whatever the truth of it, there were consequences.
'That headline drags in a Procurator Fiscal who wasn't at the game, who was nowhere to be seen, watched it on the television, knew I was on probation, knew then that if I got a conviction there was a good chance I'd go to prison. I probably wrongfully blamed the press for chasing that headline. I was young.'
What galls him still is what he sees as the injustice of sending him to prison. Zinedine Zidane headbutted Italy's Marco Materazzi in front of a global audience in the World Cup final in 2006 and didn't end up behind bars, he points out in the book.
Ferguson served time in Barlinnie (Image: free) Ferguson was just in his early twenties in 1994. 'I had a job, I had a salary, I had a career ahead of me. I think there was another option for the judicial system. They could have put me on community service. That would have been the right thing to do in my mind. I think it was a bit of a stitch-up in the end.'
And so he ended up in Barlinnie.
'That to me is wrong and it's still wrong to this day and I'm lucky I got through it. I might not have got through it. I could have broken my probation. I could have hit a couple of people in the prison which would then have put me in for another three months and I could have kept rolling it on.'
In the end he only served 44 days of a three-month sentence but the way he writes about it and the way he talks about it today, it's clear those 44 days remain painfully vivid to him. The noise, the violence, the excremental stench of the place.
'There are some things in there you won't forget,' he suggests. 'It's a scary place for anyone going in there, but imagine playing for the Rangers. Imagine playing for the Celtic or the Rangers and going into Barlinnie.
'You're playing for the Rangers, man. It's ridiculous. They could have put me into a different prison. But I went into Glasgow and I was an ex-Rangers player and a current Everton Premier League player. Not easy.'
I wonder what his first night inside felt like?
'A lot of people started screaming in the night that they were going to cut me to pieces and they were going to get me in the morning. It was worrying. I never really slept. There were bars. You could hear everything.
Duncan Ferguson at Rangers in the 1993/1994 season (Image: SNS Group) 'My hall backed onto another hall. D Hall backed onto C Hall. And they were all screaming and they were pinpointing your cell. They shout along, saying they know where you are and what they're going to do to you in the morning.
'Not an easy night.' He shakes his head.
'My first night was the worst night. It takes a lot of bottle to step out onto the landing in the morning. I was on my own. That door opens up in the morning, it takes a lot of bottle to step out,' he repeats.
'It was a tough night because you're getting these threats and of course it's not just idle threats from the terraces. It's actually people in prison who are obviously in prison for a reason.'
Of course the sentence all added to the legend. Big Dunc, the toughest man in football.
'Absolutely. I'm the hardest man who ever put a pair of boots on, who has ever walked this earth. I'm the toughest guy in Premier League history. A load of crap. A load of absolute rubbish. I've never even been the toughest guy in any of my dressing rooms, never mind in the history of the game.'
Well, yes. Then again in the book he does go into a couple of times when he had a few words with some of his teammates who were throwing their weight around. And then there were the couple of occasions burglars broke into his home in Liverpool and found themselves confronted by 'Big Dunc'. There may be a few people out there all willing to believe the legend.
The thing is, speaking to him now, it's hard to see your way back to the younger man he was. In conversation he is funny and open, his answers astute and nuanced. You wonder what might have happened if he had spoken out more during his career rather than kept his counsel. Would the 'hard man' legend be quite so engrained?
But then he's a different man now. He stopped drinking in his thirties, with, it would appear, no real difficulty.
Ferguson as Caretaker Manager of Everton (Image: SNS Group)
'Yeah, if I want to stop drinking, I stop drinking. If I want to go on a diet or start training I do it. That's my biggest regret - touching booze. I feel as if I am the person now that I should have been through all those years. I got rolled into a lot; invincible, burn the candle at both ends, 'look at me, I'm Big Dunc, I can do what I want.'
'That to me is not me as a person. The person I'm looking at now is the person I should have been. You cannae roll back the f****** clock, you can't turn back time, and the biggest regret in my mind is touching booze.'
Football is a very different game today than the one he first played in, of course. Players don't behave in the same way.
'We are more educated now. Back in our day we were going around the estate, buying bottles of cider and vodka. We just did that, didn't we?'
What must have it been like to be that younger man in the eye of the hurricane that is fame - or infamy, if you prefer - and money? (Despite all the wealth he earned from football he ended up declaring himself bankrupt in 2016.)
It must have been difficult to deal with, I suggest?
'I think so, but I don't think it's much of an excuse for me. I wasn't that bothered about money. I gave most of it away, stupidly. Didn't respect money.
'But I don't know if it was the money. It's just the way I was, really.'
There are other regrets. That he only played for his country seven times. He was pigheaded about the SFA's decision to suspend him for 12 games when he was charged with the assault on John McStay (before the case even came to court). The ban was later reduced to five, but he never really committed himself to the national side in the wake of it. Another regret now.
But enough of the lows, what of the highs? What, I wonder, has football given him over the years?
'Oh, it gave me incredible highs, fantastic moments, real euphoria.'
Ferguson at Inverness Caley Thistle (Image: SNS Group)
Given the chance, he says, he thinks he could be a good manager despite the fact that his two jobs in management - at Forest Green Rovers and most recently at Inverness Caley Thistle - did not go well.
But he's not burning up with frustration. Life is good, he says. He's built a family after all.
'Yeah, absolutely, my three kids. And my missus is still there. I've got a good family life.'
The distance from Duncan Ferguson then to Duncan Ferguson now is more than just time. But some things haven't changed. Have you still got your pigeons, Duncan?
He perks up at the word, lifts his laptop and starts crossing to the window. On the back of the sofa I can't help but see a small air rifle.
'That's my gun, right. In case anybody comes in.' He's joking. It's to protect his birds, I'm guessing. Anyway, he's already framing the view of his back garden.
'There's my pigeon loft. See that green thing,' he says proudly of an impressive, imposing shed that sits outside. 'So, I've still got my pigeons. I still love my pigeons. I've got about six pairs at the moment, but a lot of young ones. They breed like mad. You've got to take the eggs out and put wee plastic eggs underneath them to stop them hatching to con them. They sit on wee plastic eggs.'
He is glowing as he talks about them. And for a moment I think I see the ghost of the boy he once was.
Big Dunc is published by Century