Duncan Ferguson on his hell at Bar-L: People were telling me I was going to get slashed in the morning. I was only 23, on my own. It was frightening. You think: 'How has it come to this?'

The prima was mounting implicit the Clyde, the extremity credits were conscionable astir to roll, erstwhile Duncan Ferguson was asked a question.

‘Who would play you successful the movie of your life?’ a instrumentality chirped up from the 3rd row. The large antheral could not springiness an answer. This was understandable.

Who, aft all, could springiness an authentic show arsenic the huffy antheral of the guardant enactment who aboriginal doles retired pounds to waiting children?

Who could transportation disconnected scenes of applying a lucifer to a cookware of overgarment and astir wiping retired Tannadice? Who could marque it tenable to ideate a quality who erstwhile imbibed Cristal champagne portion racing his doos?

Who tin reconcile the polar opposites of a property who tin propulsion his team-mates astir a physio country and past punt up £25,000 for a wee travel for them aft helium feels helium has fto them down by being sent off?

This is each Big Dunc: Dundee United, Rangers, Newcastle and, crucially, Everton player. This is Big Dunc: the lad who went to situation but the subordinate who visited the sick and the lonely successful their homes.

‘Duncan became the fable earlier helium became the player,’ Joe Royle, his one-time manager, erstwhile said. The fable has present been printed. At a plush edifice successful Erskine connected Friday, Ferguson, present 53, came to archer all. He did not disappoint.

‘I wanted to archer my story,’ helium said. He aboriginal reflected: ‘I privation I could spell back. You can’t. I person a ton of regrets. I abused myself. I thought shot was easy, beingness was easy. You get older and you realise beingness is tough. I can’t spell backmost to being that young lad again. I should person been the best.’

This excessively is Big Dunc: serious, adjacent melancholy, but 1 anxious to play the beingness communicative for laughs. There is overmuch to amuse. Ferguson is the exemplar of shot astatine a definite signifier successful its history. The large wealth was conscionable coming in, the clasp contracts were disappearing but the lads were inactive lads.

There was Merrydown cider and cans of lager, determination were precocious jinks. There were the brushes with authorization that were absurd and past calamitous for Ferguson.

The intimations of catastrophe appeared early. ‘He was a tyrant,’ said Ferguson of Jim McLean. ‘He was justified successful a batch of things helium did, though. I was a spot nuts, I was crazy.

‘He wasn’t precise bully to me. We didn’t truly get on. I didn’t hatred the man, I respected the man, but the things helium was doing to maine I didn’t like. He tried to bully me. I got bullied astatine schoolhouse and it took maine a agelong clip to basal up to that bully. But erstwhile you basal up to that bully they melt away.’

McLean yet slipped from Ferguson’s beingness but not aft strain endured by some sides during the player’s spell astatine the nine from 1990-93. There was the pyrotechnic with the overgarment cookware that caused genuine alarm. There was the infinitesimal erstwhile McLean baited a trap for radical helium thought were stealing wealth from the canteen. ‘He had taken each the serial numbers from the lb notes helium enactment successful the canteen,’ explained Ferguson. ‘He past took america up to the boardroom and we were portion searched. It was not the past clip I was portion searched,’ helium added wryly.

McLean, too, stripped to his underwear to amusement helium was not the thief. The substance was someway resolved but this was shot successful the aboriginal nineties. A authorities that held the powerfulness of declaration and players who had not yet embraced sports subject oregon accessed the wealth that was swirling into the game.

Ferguson would beryllium swept distant by this excess. It would instrumentality him into Barlinnie, into a excavation of despair.

The laughing stopped. Ferguson had moved connected from the surreality of telling the assemblage that helium had nary pubic hairsbreadth until helium was precocious successful teenage years. His adjacent taxable was the brutal world of Bar-L.

‘The archetypal nighttime was horrendous. It was the worst nighttime of my life,’ helium said. Ferguson was jailed successful 1995 aft breaching probation conditions. He had clashed with John McStay astatine Ibrox successful April 1994. He called it a ‘collision’, others insisted it was a butt. It was capable to guarantee helium spent 44 days successful Barlinnie. He had been successful a bid of erstwhile incidents, astir notably a punch-up successful Anstruther.

‘No easy,’ helium said of his jailhouse term. ‘It’s nary casual for anyone going to prison. And I played for the Rangers. Half of the nick are Rangers fans, fractional of the nick are Celtic fans. When I went done that doorway for the archetypal time, they were each connected the landings. Everybody. All looking down connected me. You could person heard a pin drop. I had to locomotion done everyone. It tests you, it tests you.’

The repetition emphasises that the symptom has not rather gone.

‘When I went done the compartment doorway I felt relief,’ helium said. There was a little spell of bid and helium sat connected the borderline of the bed. Then day turned to night. ‘It became darker, and darker. Then determination were the threats.’

He heard the shouts. ‘What compartment is helium in. I americium going to chopped that large soiled Orange b******. He’s gonnae get chopped tae f***.’

Ferguson added: ‘Half a twelve to 10 radical were telling maine I was going to get slashed successful the morning. I was lone 23, connected my own. It was frightening. You think: “How has it travel to this?”’

This would instrumentality much than a publication to answer. There are immoderate clues, however. Ferguson admitted helium was told by his begetter ‘to get his retaliation successful first’. He was taught by quality and nurture to conscionable threats forcibly.

But his inheritance was reasonably emblematic for a lad from St Ninians, Stirling. ‘I was brought up successful the tenements. I had a large upbringing. One broadside was the tenement, the different broadside was the country. I had everything. We had nae wealth but I had the country. I had the fishing, I loved taking my ferrets to drawback the rabbits, I ever had my canine with me.’

Football took him distant from this. It led him to fame, past infamy. It introduced riches, past bankruptcy. The lad who walked the hills was fated to gait a cell.

The honesty is unrestrained. There is humour successful tales recounting however Craig Brown, past Scotland adjunct coach, woke Ferguson successful his country by hoovering a level that was strewn with the detritus of excess. Ferguson admitted connected the nighttime earlier successful 1992 helium astir acceptable occurrence to the Swiss hotel, too. It is an progressive communicative with a wicker chair, a wardrobe of burning paper, and retribution against brew being poured connected his bed. Again, this was the mode of it successful the aboriginal nineties.

But different brushwood with a manager was much painful. Ferguson had been sentenced to situation and was successful the process of an entreaty erstwhile helium was summoned to Walter Smith’s office. The Rangers manager had a message.

‘He said to me: “Look Duncy, we are reasoning of moving you on”. I was crying my eyes out.’

Ferguson admitted: ‘The determination to Rangers was excessively aboriginal for me. I was excessively young. I was immature. Maybe I wasn’t bully enough.’

Ally McCoist, sitting successful the audience, and Mark Hateley were the first-choice strikers. Rangers wanted to hold a play earlier buying Ferguson but the striker said: ‘I was hopeless to get retired of Dundee. It turned retired to beryllium a precise atrocious move.’

He added: ‘They paid implicit the odds.’ The transportation interest was a past Scottish grounds of £4m. ‘I fto Walter down. I went to Rangers and I failed. I didn’t springiness myself the champion accidental to succeed. That truly wounded me.’

He acknowledged the madness of his life. In 1993, earlier his determination to Rangers, helium played against Germany, past the satellite champions, astatine Ibrox. Scotland mislaid 1-0 but Ferguson was brutally belligerent and technically adroit. His overhead footwear has go astir a signifier for his career. It was spectacular but it was saved.

Indeed, Ferguson ne'er scored for Scotland successful immoderate of his 7 appearances. He walked distant from planetary duty, bitter astatine the relation helium perceived the SFA to person played successful his tribunal travails. A telephone telephone from McCoist erstwhile Smith had taken implicit arsenic nationalist manager failed to transportation him to return.

He is frank astir the genesis of his troubles. ‘I thought I had made it earlier I had made it. I thought I was invincible. I played against Celtic astatine Tannadice and I was drunk. I ripped it apart. Football was casual for maine until I went to Ibrox. I don’t deliberation determination were galore large moments there.’

Indeed, his archetypal extremity came connected the time helium clashed with McStay. So it was disconnected to Everton, initially connected a loan, and past connected a imperishable transfer. He became a fable there. He produced a tableau of melodramatic goals, sprinkled with reddish cards.

It could person each played retired astatine Bayern Munich. They were keen connected signing him aft his show against Germany. But 2 days aft the crippled helium was warring with 4 men successful The Rock successful Menzieshill, Dundee. He broke his toe. It was a harbinger of injuries to come.

When helium was acceptable helium was unplayable, erstwhile helium was unfit helium did not play. The second began to predominate the former.

This is successful the past. The contiguous is simply a marquee astatine Mar Hall. The nighttime is marked with 2 moments of genuine passion, possibly joy. The archetypal is the recollection of that lad striding retired with his ferrets. The 2nd is an anecdote astir his beingness successful Majorca wherever helium lived for 4 years aft his playing retirement.

‘I was a truly bully pigeons antheral and I took them with me,’ helium said. One time they were racing from Ibiza to Majorca.

‘I had a straw chapeau on, eating paella, drinking brew and smoking fags with guys who were astir 90 years old. They didn’t cognize I was a bully pigeons man. Suddenly I shouted: “Palomas a qui”. Five pigeons spell roar into the loft. The lads astir choked connected their paella.’

There is past that Ferguson laugh. It signifies much. He knows helium did not marque the astir of the talent. He accepts overmuch of that was dissipated successful intoxicant and helium has not drunk since 2008. He remembers Bar L. He carries the wounds of bankruptcy erstwhile the taxman came looking for £4m.

However, determination is, perhaps, different realisation. He is fit, vibrant. He whitethorn not cognize who would play him successful a movie but helium knows helium has survived. He has been done the tempest and lived to archer the tales.

Big Dunc is published by Century (£22)

The wit and contented of Big Dunc 

On a disappointing Scotland debut successful a friendly: ‘I cannae get myself up for these f****** parkland games.’

On playing Holland successful 1992: ‘Ruud Gullit was the champion subordinate I person ever seen. I was made up successful that game. When I came connected arsenic sub the Dutch manager shouted to Frank Rijkaard: “He’s coming connected present truthful people him.” I was chuffed. I ne'er touched the shot I was truthful engaged looking astatine Rijkaard.’

On his hero, Davie Cooper: ‘I conscionable wanted to beryllium similar him. I watched him enactment successful a free-kick astatine Hampden against Aberdeen. Top corner. I was a Rangers antheral and each my household were Rangers men.’

On Everton: ‘I played my champion shot there. I had clip connected the pitch. We weren’t precise bully astatine the clip (when helium archetypal arrived successful 1993) and I managed to beryllium that talisman. I was aggressive, I took nary prisoners. I loved it down there.’

On being an idol: ‘Everton fans loved maine due to the fact that I cared for them, I would sojourn them. I built that relationship. When we came retired of the grooming ground, determination would beryllium young kids and I would springiness them a pound. A young Wayne Rooney was there. I person pics of him astatine 9 erstwhile helium was extracurricular the grooming ground.’

On ever going backmost to Everton oregon Rangers: ‘My clip has gone astatine Everton, unfortunately, I privation to beryllium a manager. I request to rebuild my career. I picked 2 incredibly pugnacious jobs astatine Forest Green and Inverness Caledonian Thistle. But you get knocked down, you get backmost up.’

Favourite memory: ‘Scoring goals against apical teams. Against Liverpool, against Man United. I ever did good against some of them. I retrieve scoring the extremity that bushed Celtic astatine Parkhead (December 26, 1992). Dundee United person not won determination successful the league since then.’

Life advice: ‘Don’t beryllium swearing successful interviews. Once I was asked to spell for the Everton job, I mislaid my rag with the owners successful the interrogation successful London. I didn’t get the job.’

Best centre-half: ‘Sami Hyypia astatine Liverpool. He was a bully player, bully successful the air. He wasn’t physically beardown but helium work the crippled well.'

Biggest quality helium coached: ‘James Rodriguez. He was conscionable walking astir and past stopped successful grooming and I shouted astatine him: “Vamos, venga, venga. Hey, you run, rapido”. He conscionable looked astatine maine and I knew helium was thinking: “Who is this guy?”’

On doing his audio book: ‘It wasn’t easy. The past clip I work retired thing was successful schoolhouse erstwhile I was doing my lines. “I volition not punch him successful the look again.”’