Duncan Ferguson has relived one of the grimmiest moments from his spell in prison following his notorious headbutt on John McStay while playing for Rangers in the mid-1990s
Duncan Ferguson admitted he resorted to defecating on a copy of the Daily Record as he opened up about his grim spell in prison.
The former Rangers and Scotland striker was sentenced to three months behind bars – although he was released after 44 days – for headbutting Raith’s John McStay during a match at Ibrox in 1994. Ferguson, then 23, became the only professional footballer to be imprisoned for an on-field offence.
He entered Glasgow’s notorious HMP Barlinnie in October 1995. Despite his hardman persona, it was a traumatic few weeks, which featured the lowest moments of the big striker’s life.
One particular memory couldn’t have been further removed from the life of a top professional footballer, when he had no option but to relieve himself on a copy of the Record. Opening up to Gary Lineker on The Rest Is Football podcast, he recalled: “If you’d done a number two, a poo, in your pot, it got left in there [at the weekend].
“On the weekend, there’s skeleton staff, so you were basically locked down for 23 hours a day. If you’d done your number two on that pot, you’re going to stink your cell out the whole weekend.
“I got pally with the guy next to me. He said, ‘Don’t do a s***e in your pot. Do it in the paper and get it out the window.’ I was like, ‘What?’.”
He followed his cellmate’s advice, adding: “The next minute, I’ve got the Daily Record paper on the floor in my cell, squatting, doing my business. I’m then rolling it up and throwing it out the window. I remember shouting, ‘Bombs away!’
“Sometimes, the boys were lighting them because they smelled even worse; it was horrendous. But you just fell into that, because you had to, you just had to.”
Ferguson, who had joined Everton by the time he was locked up, has been promoting his book, ‘Big Dunc: The Upfront Autobigraphy’, where he candidly addresses his spell at Barlinnie. He recalls in the book: “I was entering Britain’s most notorious prison with its huge stone walls, barbed wire wound around the top and forbidding metal doors that had all the charm of the brass plate on a coffin.
“Outside, I was Big Dunc. striker. Everton and Scotland targetman. Everywhere I looked, I sensed menace. My stomach knotted as I completed the cold, clinical elements of being processed.
“Clothes off. An invasive inspection. A lingering sense of humiliation. God only knows what my mum and dad were feeling. All I had left was £5 to buy phonecards – prison currency – as I was led to my cell in D Hall.”
After being released early for good behaviour, Ferguson went on to rebuild his career, becoming an Everton legend over two spells and playing for Newcastle United in between.
After a couple of stints as Everton caretaker boss, he went into full-time management with English lower league club Forest Green before a year in charge of Inverness Caledonian Thistle. He left the League One club when it plunged into administration last year.
