(273 games, 72 goals)
It’s difficult to imagine a time when ‘Big Dunc’ conjured up little more than indifference amongst Evertonians. It’s almost as though you can divide Everton chronology into the era that existed Before Duncan (B.D.) and that which has existed after Duncan (A.D). But before he became a legend, he was just a player. And at first, not a great one.
According to Alan Pattullo, author of In Search of Duncan Ferguson: The Life and Crimes of a Footballing Enigma, his journey to Goodison arose quite by accident:
‘Peter Johnson, and some other members of the board had travelled to Rangers, Ferguson’s club at the time, to investigate ways to increase hospitality streams. Whilst there, they met up with Rangers’ manager Walter Smith and talk moved on to players.’
At this point, Everton, still under the woeful stewardship of Mike Walker, were without a win in the league and Johnson saw this as an opportunity to bring some much-needed fresh blood to the squad.
‘Initially’ continues Pattullo, ‘the aim was to bring the midfielders Ian Durrant and Trevor Steven in on a permanent deal. But as Everton were in need of some additional fire-power, they also inquired after Mark Hateley. With the striker not keen on a move south, Ferguson was offered to the club instead.’
In the end, Steven’s move fell through and Everton ended up taking Durrant on loan for a month and Ferguson for three.
‘The only reason Duncan came on loan [and not bought]’ Mike Walker told Pattullo when interviewed for his book ‘was because the chairman was a bit unsure, telling me that “I don’t know about this, he’s a bad lad”. We didn’t have limitless pots of money, which didn’t help either. Basically, I said “why don’t we get him on loan? If we get him on loan we win two ways – we get a look at the lad, and if he is a real hot head then we can let him go. Let’s take him – see what he’s like?” Let’s give him the chance I thought.’
Far from being greeted as a transfer coup, the deals were met with derision by the media, with headlines such as ‘Farce’, ‘Walkers Wobbles’ and ’Loan Rangers Fiasco’ appearing in the national press.
The negative reaction was a response to the baggage that both players brought with them. Durrant had suffered a career-threatening knee injury that had left him out of competitive football for almost three years. It led inevitably to question marks about his fitness. And in Ferguson, it was a measure of Everton’s desperation over the side’s lack of potency up front that the club had turned to a player who’d developed a reputation for being ill-disciplined and whose form had declined markedly.
Despite his abundant promise, the Scot had endured a difficult time since his £4m move from Dundee United to Rangers in the summer of 1993. Ferguson had only put in 14 appearances for the Old Firm giant and scored just two goals. He’d also fallen foul of both the football and the legal authorities following an on-the-pitch altercation during which he had head-butted John McStay of Raith Rovers. The incident would earn Ferguson a 12-game ban from the Scottish FA and attract the attention of the Procurator Fiscal, who for the first time in Scottish legal history would prosecute a footballer for assault on the field of play.
Expensive to keep, off form and a source of controversy, according to Pattullo, Rangers appeared content to farm out their troubled forward for a time.
‘Since his altercation with McStay in April 1994, Ferguson had largely become a fixture on the bench. Back then, the club had the good fortune that Mark Hateley, the man Ferguson had been bought to replace, had been playing well, so there was less need for Dunc to be part of the club [or on the wage bill].’
For Everton and Walker, the hope was that a change of scene would do the Scot some good, enabling him to recapture the form that he displayed at Dundee United. But during Ferguson’s early days at Goodison, this looked like wishful thinking.
‘There was little in the Scot’s performances to suggest that his loan period would ever be extended. He looked listless, uninterested and nothing like the player he’d been at Dundee United. Any hopes that the introduction of a supposedly talented “Number 9” would transform our season had been quashed. Ferguson didn’t inspire hope in the slightest’ remembers Neil Roberts, author of Blues & Beatles: Football, Family and the Fab Four – the Life of an Everton Supporter.
Considering the degree of reverence that still surrounds Ferguson, it was actually Durrant who was received with more affection by the fans to begin with. Not only had he bothered to attend his first press conference in the correctly coloured attire (Ferguson opted for an inflammatory red blazer), he also appeared more committed on the pitch.
‘I don’t think Ferguson took the loan seriously to begin with. You have to appreciate that his move to Rangers, his boyhood club, had been a dream come true. That’s where his heart lay. His time in Liverpool probably felt temporary. At this point, Ferguson was a player who likely thought that playing for Everton was a step down for him and that the sooner he could get back up north the better’ thinks Pattullo.
Early on into his loan period, the manager who brought Ferguson to Goodison was sacked. Walker, who had led Everton to a dismal start to the campaign, was replaced by Joe Royle. Immediately, Royle began to create a very different kind of Everton, a shift from the anaemic, possession football of Walker to something tougher and more direct. In theory, it was a style of play better suited to the Scot. But only time would tell if he would respond.
The first test for both the players and the new approach was Liverpool at home. It was a game when the fans first got to see the ‘Dogs of War’ in action, Royle’s tenacious midfield of Parkinson, Ebbrell and Horne. They harried and chased Liverpool all night, refusing to give them time to breath. And it was also the first time that the supporters got to see a very different kind of Duncan Ferguson, the player who would become talismanic for the Blues in the mid-1990s.
If one moment could be said to have changed the Scot’s reputation at Goodison it would be the goals scored that night. Stan Osborne takes up the story:
‘It was in the second half. We’d controlled Liverpool but as yet, not created too many chances. We’d looked most dangerous from Andy Hinchliffe’s precision guided corners, which had been causing Liverpool problems all night but without yielding anything for the home side. That was about to change. Around the 50-minute mark Ferguson connected with one and put the ball narrowly over the bar. It was a warning shot to Liverpool, one that to their cost they failed to heed. When Ferguson met the next corner, he didn’t head the ball, he butted it. There was a moment, just as the ball crossed the line but before it hit the back of the net when Goodison was silent. Then, when we all realised what had happened there was just an explosion of noise.’
Everton would go on to win the game 2-0. Not only had they defeated the auld enemy but the three points represented a vital first step in the club’s fight to avoid relegation.
‘It was an incredible night’ remembers Graham Ennis. ‘Nobody had given us a chance before the game, so to get the win was amazing. And that, plus great performances in the weeks that followed, finally gave us some hope. This new version of Everton under Royle looked tenacious, the kind of side who knew what it took to get out of the bottom three. And in Ferguson, an old-fashioned centre forward, like a great Everton “Number 9” from the club’s past, we seemed to have a strong presence to build everything around. One of my greatest memories of that night, and that season, was being on County Road after the Derby, waiting to get a bus into town and seeing Ferguson strutting down the road like he was the king of the city.’
Although he was never a prolific scorer and could be anonymous against the smaller clubs, ‘Big Dunc’ became the totemic embodiment of Everton’s revival during the remainder of that campaign.
‘It was a pretty grey time being an Evertonian in the early 90s – we were a team and a club in decline. In the Kendall Mark-II-era we had had that team of midgets – Beardsley, Cottee, Ward. Some nice footballers but suddenly, here was this formidable “Number 9” in an Everton shirt again. Moreover, he brought the fear factor. He had an arrogance that really came through in the big matches – just look at all the goals he scored against Liverpool and Man United. People were laughing at Everton when Mike Walker was manager. Joe Royle changed that, with the help of some very good footballers. But it was Duncan who was the talismanic figure the fans latched on to’ says Simon Hart.
The season’s narrative unquestionably helped Ferguson. Not only did Royle manage to engineer a miraculous survival in the league, the club ended the campaign as FA Cup winners. A bleaker outcome might’ve soured how that side was viewed and the way in which the players connected to the crowd. As it was, Blues could end the season on a high, revelling in the imagery of the iconic Scot holding the cup aloft.
But although Ferguson brought much to the side, he also came with baggage, and in the following campaign the fans got to experience the impact this could have. To begin with, he missed most of the early part of the season due to injury.
‘That was something that plagued his career’ says Phil McMullen. ‘Whenever he seemed to be finding form, suddenly he’d get another injury. It might have just been the way he played. Dunc threw himself into everything and inevitably, I suppose, that comes with risks. But after we signed him permanently, for around £4.5m, it was something we had to put up with. He was a player we had to have but also one that, disappointingly, we spent too much time without.’
Allied to an unenviable injury record, Ferguson also suffered from disciplinary problems throughout his career. And in his first full season with the club, Everton were on the receiving end of this issue at its most extreme. Just as the Scot was beginning to return to full fitness after his lay off, he was forced to go north for the culmination of his long running dispute with the Scottish legal system.
The case against Ferguson had been tried in the week following the FA Cup Final and had gone against him. He was found guilty of assault and sentenced to three months in prison. Sheriff Alexander Eccles had told the Glasgow Sheriff Court that Ferguson needed to be jailed ‘in the public interest’ to illustrate to the wider country that such behaviour would not be tolerated, something that would be assisted by Ferguson’s position as a high-profile footballer.
Although he appealed, it was to no avail. In early October, Lord Hope, the Lord Justice General of Scotland upheld the sentence. Ferguson would be taken to Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison to serve his time, the first British footballer to be jailed for an on-field offence.
‘That might’ve been an extreme example of his tendency to get into trouble, but it was indicative of a player who often let his temper get the better of himself during his career. It felt like because of suspensions and injuries, we only ever got to see a fraction of what Ferguson could have been’ thinks Phil Redmond.
Ferguson did eventually return to the fold. The Scot’s sentence was cut short and he was released in late November. Not long after, 11,000 Blues attended to watch him turn-out for a reserve game against Newcastle. At the time, he was ineligible to play for the first team because the Scottish FA’s 12 game ban was in force.
Following a challenge by the club, who claimed that their player was being punished twice for the same offence, the ban was eventually overturned by a judicial review. Ferguson returned to the senior fray for a home game against Wimbledon on New Year’s Day 1996, scoring twice in a 3-2 win.
And for the next few seasons, he carried on from where he had left off; missing some games, turning up for others, scoring the occasional memorable goal. Although he never quite recaptured the magic of that first campaign, while fit and free from suspension, he remained a figure held in great affection.
‘You always felt that Dunc understood what it was to be an Evertonian, that he “got” the club. And no matter whether it was the good times, like winning the FA Cup, or the bad times, like nearly going down against Coventry, he cared about what was happening just as much as you did. And I think it was this sense that he was one of our own that made the decision to sell him to Newcastle in 1998 so shocking to the fans’ says Neil Roberts.
Sold for £8m without his knowledge, or the knowledge of Walter Smith, the manager at the time, it was a move that had nothing to do with football and everything to do with the bottom line.
‘Everton needed the money’ says Dave Prentice. ‘Contrary to what the supporters assumed, that the summer spending on the likes of John Collins and Olivier Dacourt had come from fresh investment, in reality, Peter Johnson had simply extended the club’s overdraft. The club was in debt and as one of its leading assets, the sale of Ferguson could help plug that.’
The move, briefly, threw the club into crisis. Smith threatened to resign and the fans were in open revolt. Ferguson himself inflamed the situation when he let it be known in The Evertonian, how against the move he had been:
‘I was numb with shock really. It sickened me’ he said ‘I couldn’t believe it. I am absolutely heartbroken to leave the club. I think everyone knows what Everton Football Club means to me. I thought I would finish my career there and I wanted to finish my career at Goodison Park. I approached the club for the new contract which I signed last season and a month ago I had been talking to my agent about asking for an extension to that deal. I was happy to be at Everton for life, if they wanted me. In the last couple of days my world has turned upside down.’
Although all parties settled down, the sale was the final nail in the coffin for the reign of owner, Peter Johnson. His stock already low following the club’s continued decline (and near-death experience during the 1997/98 season), the sale of the club’s most popular player proved to be a blow he could not recover from. Within 18 months, the club had been sold and with that the Johnson-era was brought to a close.
But the Ferguson-era at Everton was not yet over. Although he spent nearly two years at St James’ Park, continued injuries meant he barely featured for the first team. By the summer of 2000, Newcastle were looking to off-load him and Everton came calling, bringing the forward back home for £3.75m.
During his first game back at Goodison, the returning hero came on with 25 minutes to go, scoring two in a 3–0 win over Charlton. But if Evertonians were hoping that it was a taste of things to come, they were to be disappointed (for a few seasons at least).
‘I remember being at Goodison to lap up the excitement of his first game back in 2000 but during that second spell, with the injuries and occasional rushes of blood to the head, it felt he’d become an expensive luxury the club could barely afford. Think of the time he grabbed Steffen Freund around the throat at Leicester. But, thankfully, during the 2004/05 campaign, some of the old magic came back and Dunc scored some big goals which helped us finish fourth and qualify for the Champions League. Winning goals against Norwich and Fulham and of course the glorious header against Man United’ says Simon Hart.
The following campaign, 2005/06, would prove to be Ferguson’s swansong. Pretty much consigned to life as a support player, the Scot would only score once all season, and that would be in his final game. It came on 7 May 2006, against West Brom at Goodison. Making a rare start, Ferguson was named captain. If the fans watching were keen to see their idol end his Blue career on a high, they had a long wait. In the 90th-minute, Mikel Arteta won Everton a penalty. There was only one person to take it. Ferguson stepped up. In truth, it was a poor strike, easy for the keeper to save. But luck was on the Scot’s side. The ball rebounded kindly, allowing him to smash it into the back of the net, securing his final goal for the club at the Gwladys Street, the same end where he had scored his first.
‘It brought to a close, from a playing perspective, one of the most memorable Everton careers in the modern age’ says Phil McMullen. ‘If you just looked at the stats alone, you wouldn’t think that Ferguson was much of a player. But he was about so much more than that. When he announced his arrival in that Derby game back in 1994, he gave the fans something that they had been missing for a long time, a genuine hero. And that mattered. Times were tough for us in the 1990s and we needed someone like Big Dunc to believe in. And whenever he played, even during that second spell when he’d lost a bit of the old magic, you knew he’d die for the club.’
Of course, the end of his playing days did not mean that Ferguson’s relationship with the club had been brought to a conclusion. After five years out of the game, he returned to Everton in 2011, invited by David Moyes to become part of the youth set-up. Since then, he has advanced to the first team coaching staff and during the club’s recent merry-go-round of managerial appointments has remained a rare constant.
He even had a crack at the top job, stepping into the caretaker’s role upon the sacking of Marco Silva in December 2019. With Everton residing in the bottom three at the time and facing a tough run of fixtures, there were parallels with that bleak time in 1994 when he had first come to the club. But, as he did back then, Ferguson rose to the challenge. Starting with a home win over Chelsea, his version of Everton, tougher, more direct and harder to break down, hauled themselves out of the danger zone, turning around a season that had threatened to career out of control.
As he ran along the touchline after the first goal against Chelsea, fists held aloft, it was as though the years had been rolled back. Big Dunc, the ‘King of the City’, back doing what he did best.
This is a chapter from Everton Number Nine: Nine Players, One Iconic Shirt
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JIM KEOGHAN 