Derek Ferguson (born 31 July 1967) is a Scottish former professional footballer and manager. A creative midfield player, Ferguson is best remembered for his time with Rangers and Heart of Midlothian. He also played for

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...

Falkirk Falkirk ( ; ; ) is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire. It lies in the Forth Valley, northwest of Edinburgh and northeast of Glasgow. Falkirk had a resident population of 32,422 at the ...

Dunfermline Athletic Dunfermline Athletic Football Club is a Scottish professional football club based in the city of Dunfermline, Fife. Founded in 1885, the club currently compete in the after winning the 2022–23 Scottish League One title. Dunfermline play at ...

Portadown Portadown ( ) is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town is based on the River Bann in the north of the county, about southwest of Belfast. It is in the Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council area and had a population ...

Partick Thistle Partick Thistle Football Club are a professional association football, football club from Glasgow, Scotland and currently plays in the . Despite their name, the club are based at Firhill Stadium in the Maryhill area of the city, and have not ...

, Adelaide Force, Ross County,

Clydebank Clydebank () is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. Situated on the north bank of the River Clyde, it borders the village of Old Kilpatrick (with Bowling, West Dunbartonshire, Bowling and Milton, West Dunbartonshire, Milton beyond) to the w ...

Alloa Athletic Alloa Athletic Football Club is a Scottish association football semi-professional club based in the town of Alloa, Clackmannanshire. They compete in as a member of the Scottish Professional Football League. According to the official club hist ...

Hamilton Academical Hamilton Academical Football Club, often known as Hamilton Accies, or The Accies, is a Scottish football club from Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, who currently compete in . They were established in 1874 from the school football team at Hamilto ...

, Raith Rovers and made two appearances for

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

Playing career

Club

Ferguson joined his first senior club, Rangers, from Gartcosh United in 1982. He enjoyed an early experience of first team involvement when picked to play in Tom Forsyth's testimonial match in 1983, aged only 15. He made his competitive debut in the 1983–84 season aged 16 years, 24 days (which remains a club record) and within a year became a first team regular at Ibrox. He showed his early promise to a wide audience with his performances alongside fellow young midfielder

Ian Durrant Ian Durrant (born 29 October 1966) is a Scottish professional football coach and former player who was last a first team coach at Kilwinning Rangers until the end of the 23-24 season. During his playing career, Durrant played as a midfielder fo ...

in the

Scottish League Cup The Scottish League Cup, also known as the Premier Sports Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a football competition open to all Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) clubs. First held in 1946–47, it is the oldest national League cup in ...

finals of

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. ** Spain and Portugal en ...

(in which he was named man of the match) and

1987 Events January * January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency. * January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Military of Chad, Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade. * January 3 – Afghan leader ...

. However, over the next couple of seasons Ferguson gradually fell out of favour at Ibrox, a tempestuous relationship with manager

Graeme Souness Graeme James Souness (; born 6 May 1953) is a Scottish former professional football player, manager and television pundit. A midfielder, Souness achieved his greatest period of success as an integral part of the Liverpool team of the late 19 ...

preventing him from developing as expected; Ian Ferguson (no relation) and veteran

Ray Wilkins Raymond Colin Wilkins (14 September 1956 – 4 April 2018) was an English football player and coach. Born into a footballing family with his father and three brothers involved in the game, Wilkins played as a midfielder. He began his career a ...

were often preferred in the position. He also suffered from injuries, including a recurring dislocated shoulder. In 1989–90 he was loaned to

and it became clear his future was not to be at Rangers, although he was very reluctant to leave the club. He played 148 times in all competitions for Rangers, scoring 8 goals. In August 1990, Heart of Midlothian spent a then club record £750,000 to take Ferguson to Tynecastle. He became a mainstay in the Hearts team over the next three seasons, including 1991–92 when they finished league runners-up. His good performances earned him a move to

, with manager

Terry Butcher Terry Ian Butcher (born 28 December 1958) is an English football manager and former player. During his playing career as a defender, Butcher captained the England national team, winning 77 caps in a ten-year international career that feature ...

(his former captain at Rangers) signing him in a part-exchange deal which saw John Colquhoun return to Hearts. After two seasons on

Wearside Wearside () is a built-up area in County Durham and Tyne and Wear, England. It is named after the River Wear which flows through it and traditionally all in the County of Durham. In the 2011 census, its official name was the Sunderland Built- ...

, Ferguson moved back to Scotland when

paid Sunderland £250,000 for his services in 1995. He spent three years with the ''Bairns'' before spending a single season ( 1998–99) with

, brief period with

in the Irish League during the 1999–00 season and a month with

. Ferguson next had a short spell in Australian soccer with Adelaide Force before returning to Scotland to play for a succession of lower league clubs, namely Ross County,

(scoring once against future club Hamilton),

and finally Raith Rovers.

International

His early performances and potential ensured he was fast-tracked into the

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

international squad in 1988. Ferguson gained two

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

during this period, in matches against

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

and

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. He also featured five times for the Under-21s and once for the B-team.

Managerial career

While at Clydebank he was briefly appointed player-manager, while he has also served as a coach at Albion Rovers before becoming Stranraer's assistant manager as part of a new management team at Stair Park with Gerry Britton. When Britton left his post as manager for the vacant assistant manager role at

, Ferguson was put in place as caretaker manager before being handed a contract as manager until the end of the 2008–09 season. Although having a bright start as manager, relations between the club and Ferguson had become strained due to his unrealistic expectations for financial support and the club's on-field performances, which led to him leaving the club after an 8–2 home defeat to Stirling Albion., one of the worst home defeats in the club's history. After leaving Stranraer he had a short spell as manager of junior outfit Glenafton Athletic. On 28 October 2010, Ferguson was named as assistant manager of

Dumbarton Dumbarton (; , or ; or , meaning 'fort of the Britons (historical), Britons') is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, on the north bank of the River Clyde where the River Leven, Dunbartonshire, River Leven flows into the Clyde estuary. ...

, however it was announced on 3 November 2010 that he will be unable to fill that role due to media commitments.

Media career

Since leaving Glenafton Athletic, Ferguson has appeared regularly for

BBC Radio Scotland BBC Radio Scotland is a Scottish national radio network owned and operated by BBC Scotland, a division of the BBC. It broadcasts a wide variety of programmes. It replaced the Scottish BBC Radio 4 opt-out service of the same name from 23 N ...

as a football pundit. His work with

BBC Scotland BBC Scotland is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland. Its headquarters are in Glasgow, employing approximately 1,250 staff as of 2017, to produce 15,000 hours of television and radio programming per year. BBC Scotla ...

was cited as his reason for not accepting the role of assistant manager at

Personal life

Ferguson is the elder brother of

Barry Ferguson Barry Ferguson (born 2 February 1978) is a Scottish football coach, former player and pundit who was most recently caretaker manager of Scottish Premiership club Rangers. Ferguson spent most of his playing career at Rangers, in two spells ei ...

, who also played for Rangers and Scotland in the same position. The siblings played against each other on three occasions during the 1998–99 season while Derek was with Dunfermline, with 20-year-old Barry scoring at

East End Park East End Park, currently named KDM Group East End Park for sponsorship purposes, is a football stadium situated in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland with a seating capacity of . The stadium plays host to the home matches of side, Dunfermline Athle ...

and 31-year-old Derek making his last appearance at Ibrox. His son

Lewis Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * " Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohe ...

is also a professional footballer. He signed for

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

in 2018, and scored the winning goal in a League Cup semi-final against Rangers in October of that year. Ferguson's baby daughter Lauren died from a heart defect at seven weeks of age in 1993; her organs were removed by medical staff at Yorkhill Hospital without parental consent, an issue which inquiries found had affected hundreds of families in the area at the time. His autobiography, ''Big Brother'', written with Bill Leckie, was published in 2006.

Honours

Rangers *

Scottish Premier Division The Scottish Football League Premier Division was, from 1975 until 1998, the top division of the Scottish Football League and the entire Scottish football league system. It lay above the Scottish Football League First, Second and (from 1994) ...

: 1986–87, 1988–89Did not make minimum 10 appearances in 1989–90 title win *

: 1986–87, 1987–88, 1988–89

Notes

References

External links

*
Profile
at sporting-heroes.net

at londonhearts.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Ferguson, Derek 1967 births Living people Footballers from North Lanarkshire Scottish men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Scotland men's international footballers Scotland men's B international footballers Scotland men's under-21 international footballers Scotland men's youth international footballers Scottish Premier League players Scottish Football League players English Football League players National Soccer League (Australia) players Rangers F.C. players Dundee F.C. players Heart of Midlothian F.C. players Sunderland A.F.C. players Falkirk F.C. players Dunfermline Athletic F.C. players Portadown F.C. players NIFL Premiership players Partick Thistle F.C. players Adelaide City FC players Ross County F.C. players Clydebank F.C. (1965) players Alloa Athletic F.C. players Hamilton Academical F.C. players Raith Rovers F.C. players Scottish football managers Scottish Football League managers Clydebank F.C. (1965) managers Stranraer F.C. managers Glenafton Athletic F.C. managers Scottish expatriate men's footballers Scottish expatriate sportspeople in Australia Expatriate men's soccer players in Australia