Duncan Ferguson on alcohol, regrets over police run-ins and being 16 years sober

Duncan Ferguson, who stopped drinking at 37, says any time there had been trouble in his life, booze had been involved.

He had been in a few scraps before an infamous incident at the Royal Hotel in Anstruther, a quiet village on the Fife coast, when he was 21, having gone to a Young Player of the Year event. ”Like a big, daft softie, I was too easily led astray.”

The legend was buying a round when a lad with them got into a confrontation with another boy.

As Ferguson split them up, a big man on a stool at the bar got involved. Ferguson said they did not want any trouble but the man replied: ‘‘Well, I’ll f***ing give you…

“He never got the word out of his mouth. As he made to get up from his stool, I sensed what was coming and didn’t wait. Boom. The fella slid off his stool and all hell broke loose. It was like the Wild West.”

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At 4am police called round where Ferguson was staying asking: "Is Duncan Ferguson here?"

“I was there all right. Laid out on the sofa, rotten, stinking drunk, buck naked aside from a pink hat someone had given me earlier that was still on my head. I had lipstick on, an earring and a silk glove. And nothing else. It was a strange night.

“At some point I’d got into fancy dress. I still don’t know when.

"The police took one look at me and said, ‘We’ll come back later.’ Which they did."

Ferguson regrets the stress and anguish he must have put his parents through.

And now he admits: "I now know as a parent how worrying it is when the phone goes late at night. My kids can’t remember the drinking. I just tell them I never had a drink. My two lads don’t drink. Once I stopped drinking, I stopped the nights out, I stopped putting myself in dangerous positions.

"But you know what? I’ve never actually said, ‘I’ve stopped drinking.’ I don’t count the days since I last had a drink. I’m not in rehab.

“Maybe one day I’ll start drinking again. Maybe one day I’ll be a great manager and will win the Premiership. If I’m offered a glass of champagne I might think, ‘You know what? I’ll have a nice glass of champagne!’ Maybe.”

Big Dunc: The Upfront Autobiography by Duncan Ferguson, with Henry Winter, is published on 8th May by Century

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