Squad No. |
9 |
Joined |
Nov 1994
Re-signed Aug 2000 |
Transfer Fee |
£3.75M |
Signed by |
Walter Smith |
Debut |
v Portsmouth
(a)
5 October 1994 |
2nd Debut
(Sub) |
v Leeds
United (a)
19 August 2000 |
2nd Debut
(Full) |
v Coventry
City (h),
26 December 2000 |
Contract;
Expires |
1 Year;
June 2006 |
Finalι |
v West Broml
(H)
7 May 2006 |
Left
Everton |
Released
8 May 2006 |
Born |
Stirling, Scotland |
Date of birth |
27 December 1971 |
Height |
6' 4" (193 cm) |
Nicknames |
Big Dunc, Big Yin, Rodin's Effigy
of Balzac |
Honours |
Scotland International (7 caps) |
STRENGTHS
|
Immense aerial power & courage
Great footwork for his size
Good passing & vision
Can be inspirational when motivated |
WEAKNESSES
|
Does not hold the ball up well
Needs the right supply to excel
Can get hot-headed and petulant
Too often lacks motivation
Defences "have his number"
Depressingly injury-prone |
Soccerbase
Datafile
|
Previous Career |
Seasons |
Club |
Appearances |
Goals |
1988-1992 |
Dundee United |
75(2) & 8(1) |
28 & 6 |
1992-1994 |
Glasgow Rangers |
8(6) & 3(5) |
2 & 0 |
1998-2000 |
Newcastle United |
24(6) & 8(3) |
8 & 4 |
When a desperate Mike Walker recruited two
Rangers players for a month's loan in October 1994 in a bid to arrest an
alarming run of games without a win that had sent Everton tumbling to the
bottom of the Premiership, most Evertonians knew more about midfielder Ian
Durrant than towering striker Duncan Ferguson.
However, a month later, after Walker had been sent packing and Joe Royle
had assumed control of the Goodison hotseat, it was Ferguson to whom the
new manager turned to form the bedrock of his fledgling tenure. The
6' 4" Scot was signed for £4M and Everton folklore was about to be
augmented by the Duncan Ferguson saga.
Having started his career at Carse Thistle, Ferguson broke into the Dundee
United team at the age of 18. A call up to the Scotland U-21s was
followed in 1992 with a summons to the full national side for the game
against the United States. Still relatively unproven at the higher levels,
Dundee United received, and turned down, £3M bids from Bayern Munich,
Leeds and Chelsea before Walter Smith decided to break the then British
Transfer record and bring Ferguson to Ibrox Park for £4M.
A torrid spell of suspensions and injuries restricted Ferguson to just 14
appearances and 2 goals before he was loaned to Mike Walker's struggling
Everton in the autumn of 1994 along with team-mate Durrant. Neither
player had much of an impact on the Toffeemen's fortunes and Walker was
dismissed that November but Royle decided that Ferguson was worth keeping
and snapped him up for £4.4M.
Ferguson's impact was immediate; on his debut proper he scored one of the
goals in a now-famous 2-0 home win over Liverpool
that kick-started a three-game winning streak and set the Blues on their
way to safety from relegation and an FA Cup the following May. 8
goals that season, scored in just 23 appearances, turned Big Dunc into a
Goodison idol as he helped the Blues to the semi-finals of the FA
Cup. The rest of the squad took over from there, setting up a
substitute's appearance for an unfit Ferguson in the triumphant final
against Manchester
United, the team Ferguson had consigned to defeat earlier in the
season with a fine headed goal that typified his style.
The 1995-96 season started full of promise for Everton with the arrival of
Andrei Kanchelskis signalling the
beginning of a mouth-watering partnership with Ferguson. However, a
dislocated shoulder forced the flying Ukrainian onto the sidelines and
when he returned Ferguson was either injured with a prolonged hernia
problem or in prison and suspended for the head butting of Raith Rovers'
John McStay in April 1994. Joe Royle claimed that, had he had
Ferguson and Kanchelskis playing together for the full season, Everton
would definitely have achieved European qualification at least. As it was,
a goal by Dennis Bergkamp 6 minutes from time against relegated Bolton
meant that Arsenal took the final UEFA Cup place on the last day of the
season.
The 1996-97 campaign started well for Ferguson who was raring to go.
Three phenomenal performances in the opening games of the season, the 2-2
draw at Old Trafford
in particular when Duncan blasted Everton into a 2-0 lead, were
unfortunately followed by a troublesome knee injury that required keyhole
surgery and restricted him to the sidelines. Nevertheless he
returned to help the club avoid the spectre of relegation after Joe Royle
resigned in March 1997.
After the farcical search for Royle's successor in the summer of 1997, it
appeared as though Duncan had been struck by the disappointment the fans
had been enduring in recent months. The form and maturity he showed
for the first half of the season demonstrated a will to repay the
adulation of the Everton faithful under the fresh start offered by Howard
Kendall's return to the Goodison hotseat. By Christmas, Ferguson had
been handed the captaincy and as the team slid back into relegation
danger, his worth to the team was emphasised beyond doubt when he was
suspended for three games in February and March 1998. A team
stripped of his inspiration and talismanic leadership looked hopelessly
bereft of direction.
International honours would be the natural progression for any other
player but in 1997, Duncan Ferguson informed the Scottish FA that he would
no longer be representing his country at international level, a gesture of
defiance at his treatment by the SFA in 1996 when they upheld a 12-match
ban on top of his prison sentence.
Having led Everton to the brink of relegation in 1997-98, Kendall was
forced out by then chairman Peter Johnson and Walter Smith appointed as
his successor. His appointment and Johnson's promise of cash for
player reinforcements heralded the opportunity for a new start at
Goodison. Scrapping for Premiership survival was no longer
satisfactory but Ferguson's towering presence and effectiveness in the air
meant the team still relied on him as the number one outlet from defence.
With the likes of midfield playmakers like Nick
Barmby, John Collins and Don
Hutchison being by-passed by the route-one tactics and opposition
defences having learned how to deal with Ferguson, the Blues' results
suffered; discontent set in. That disquiet intensified in a 3rd
Round League Cup penalty shoot-out with First Division Sunderland
when Captain Ferguson refused to take a spot-kick. Everton crashed out of
the competition and a week later, Ferguson was gone.
In an effort to appease the bankers, Ferguson was sold by then Chairman
Johnson right from under the feet of manager Walter Smith.
Behind the scenes at an evening game with Newcastle
United, negotiations were held with the same club to transfer Duncan
to St James' Park for £8M. The shockwaves from the reaction from
the supporters they were furious not so much with the fact that
Ferguson that he had been sold, more with the manner of his sale
forced Johnson to finally see sense and step down as chairman, while the
cash raised from the deal went straight into easing the club's
overdraft. And era had ended.
Despite his imperfections, his horrendous injury record and the volatile
streak that reared its ugly head all too often, his proud record against
Liverpool and his commitment beyond the call of duty at times ensured that
the man with the famous Everton tattoo would go down in Everton
folklore. The supporters were probably content to close that chapter
in Everton's history, but Ferguson was back at Goodison in August 2000.
After two injury-ravaged years at Newcastle and with Everton facing the
prospect of being without goalscoring hero Kevin Campbell for the first
few months of the 2000-01 season, Ferguson was re-signed by Everton, this
time by new owner Bill Kenwright. While many understood the romantic
sentiment of bringing the "talisman" home, it seemed as though
only a minority of fans actually agreed that bringing Ferguson's injury
problems back, not to mention the effect on Everton's style of play, was a
good idea. Worse, it later transpired that the £3.75M Everton paid
Newcastle for his services was gambled on the successful conclusion of a
media deal with NTL that was never signed.
The irony of re-signing a player known for his injury problems to replace
another injured player was seemingly lost on Messrs Kenwright and
Smith. Ferguson was duly injured in only the second appearance of
his return spell with the Blues. He was in and out of the team that
season with recurrent injury problems that required surgery, but he still
managed to weigh in with 6 goals in 13 appearances to help Everton stave
off the the threat of relegation once more.
Duncan Ferguson, much like his pigeon-fancying off-the-field persona,
remains a frustrating enigma. It appears as though he will never
rediscover the form and influence he enjoyed for much of his first spell
with the club. While he seems to have curtailed the wilder side of
his nature that attracted regular attention from referees, he also looks
to have lost much of his motivation, mobility and hunger for the Everton
cause. However, with his manager faced with an almost perpetual
injury crisis, Big Dunc will continue to be called upon, fully fit or not,
to fill the breach.
After more fitful attempts to regain full fitness, and numerous
miracle cures announced like the German doctor who swore blind Dunc
had a blood problem the cause of the Big Yin's chronic injury problems
was finally identified: a compressed sciatic nerve.
On opening him up they discovered that the nerve was completely flat
instead of being cylindrical. The Everton physio said that he had
probably had it for 4 years and it was surprising that he could run in
that time never mind play as he must have experienced a lot of pain.
The trouble with this kind of injury is that pain can be in the leg, back,
pelvis or groin hence very hard to diagnose.
Ferguson eventually regained reasonable match fitness and began to score
goals again in 2003-04. But most were from the spot and his
effectiveness was at best debatable. Apart from being accused of
calling Fulham's Luis Boa Morte a "black cunt", he kept his nose
reasonably clean... That was until a niggly game at Leicester
when the famous red mist descended once again as he was sent off for two
yellows, and proceeded to strangle Steffen Freund.
In the summer of 2004, Everton tried to buy off the last year of his
contract about £2M in salary for a paltry £½M. Big Dunc,
as you'd expect, turned it down and adopted a new role as not-so-super sub
to sustain David Moyes's assault on the top of the Premiership.
Assault being the operative word... although to be fair to Big Dunc, he
did try, coming on as sub in almost every game as Everton rose to third in
the Premiership. But it was too good to be true and he walked for
the seventh (and hopefully final) time in his Everton career after
needlessly elbowing Hreidarsson in the face at
Charlton.
But he was not even a talisman, let alone a legend. For a brief
period in the Autumn of 1994, Duncan Ferguson fully deserved his awesome
reputation. Unfortunately, the spell was soon broken and all that massive
potential squandered. There may well be justifications, such as his back
problem, but his failure to realise how much he meant to so many
Evertonians over the years and how easy it would have been to justify his
hero status with a few proactive gestures.
He could have milked the applause Gravesen fashion; he could have
applauded the fans at the end of games; in short he could have been a
legend. As Everton struggled with the loss of Thomas Gravesen after
January 2005, Ferguson started to quietly make some amends, becoming
something of a super-sub for the Blues with key interventions that earnt
Everton around 15 extra points as Champions' League qualification was
finally secured. The goal he scored in a vital and passionate
win over Manchester United was the pinnacle in a season of unexpected
rehabilitation.
So perhaps he won't after all be remembered as much for his money-grabbing
idleness, his disputes with manager and coach, his pathetically stupid sendings-off as for the inspirational goals he scored
over his time
at the club. David Moyes offered him a one-year extension, while
Blackburn tried to tempt him with a £12k/wk deal.
But the Big Yin finally went for another year at Goodison, with Everton
rumoured to be guaranteeing him only £6k/wk, with extra cash on
appearances. However, he was nowhere nearly as effective off the
bench as he had been the previous season, and it took him until the last
minute of the last game of the season in what became his last game we
to score his only goal of the season after a rebound when the keeper saved
his penalty strike.
That set up an emotional lap of appreciation after the West Brom game in
which everyone seemed to know he unspoken truth: that this was the last time
Big Dunc would play for Everton.
Updated by Michael
Kenrick, May 2006 |