It is Thursday afternoon at Forest Green Rovers’ council-owned training ground and, a week into his managerial career, Duncan Ferguson is faced with one of those situations the UEFA Pro Licence course does not prepare you for.
Jahmari Clarke, the League One strugglers’ deadline-day loan signing from Championship side Reading, has a problem with his car. The word from the car park is that something has broken — an axle, a wheel arch… nobody is quite sure.
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The towering, muscle-bound figure of Ferguson strides through the foyer with an unmistakable air of purpose. Briefly, you wonder whether the fearsome former Dundee United, Rangers, Everton, Newcastle United and Scotland striker will rip the axle out with his bare hands. Or maybe his teeth.
He wanders over, takes a quick look and then walks back indoors.
“I don’t have a clue about cars,” he says, telling Clarke he will try to find someone who does.
From Sir Alex Ferguson to Carlo Ancelotti, Forest Green’s new manager has been inundated with messages wishing him good luck and warning him to expect the unexpected. His first 10 days on the job have brought plenty of challenges.
But Ancelotti has never been faced with questions of the type Ferguson faced on taking charge at Forest Green — such as what is he, a man who in his playing days gave the impression he ate opposition defenders for breakfast, doing here, half an hour’s drive north east of Bristol on the edge of the picturesque Cotswolds, at a club best known for their environmental initiatives, their plans for a new wooden stadium, their electric team bus and their all-vegan menu for supporters, players and staff alike?
Yes, Duncan Ferguson, Forest Green Rovers manager, is going to take some getting used to, particularly when his players see he still has an Everton tattoo on his left arm.
But Duncan Ferguson, football manager? No, this has been years in the planning. And now, at 51, he feels more than ready.
He just wishes he had been given the opportunity to start earlier and higher up the ladder than 24th and last in English football’s third division.
When he hung up his boots in 2006, at the end of an injury-ravaged second spell at Everton, Ferguson moved with his family — and his beloved pigeons — to the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, planning to enjoy retirement in the sunshine.
Gradually, though, he felt a sense of unfinished business — with football and with Everton. Something was missing from his life. After five years in Spain, he moved his family back to Merseyside and arranged a chat with David Moyes, Everton’s manager at the time, to ask for some advice.
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“Moyesy wanted to offer me an ambassador role — working for the academy and helping to recruit kids,” Ferguson says in his office at Forest Green’s training ground. “I said to him, ‘Actually, I’m working for my B Licence and I want to crack on; you know, as a coach’. So he said, ‘Why you don’t do that here? You can learn the ropes, learn how to put the cones and the bibs out, learn how to put a session on’.
“People just see the name — Duncan Ferguson. They don’t know what I’ve done. For the first two years I never got paid, but it wasn’t about money. I was just made up to be learning and progressing. I loved it. Eventually, I went up to work for the first team and they decided to pay me. But even then it was buttons, believe me.”
Over the next eight years, Ferguson was on Everton’s first-team coaching staff, working under Roberto Martinez, Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardyce, Marco Silva, Carlo Ancelotti, Rafa Benitez and Frank Lampard.
He had two stints as caretaker manager, the first of them after taking over from Silva with the club in the relegation zone. He led Everton to a battling victory over Chelsea at Goodison Park and draws with Manchester United and Arsenal before making way for Ancelotti.
Despite his affection and admiration for the Real Madrid coach, he feels he should have got the job then and when it arose again, before the appointments of Benitez and Lampard.
“Yes, 100 per cent,” he says. “Even the first time (after Silva’s sacking), I was ready. We were 18th and getting battered every game beforehand and we got five points from three games against Chelsea, Man United and Arsenal and got out of the relegation zone. I felt ready and they never gave me the job. But… hey, it was Carlo Ancelotti, so what a guy to learn from and to have that on your CV.”
Ferguson loved working with Ancelotti (“Such a cool guy, the way he talks to the players, walking around with his electric cigarette, and so good with his tactics and his substitutions”) but he mentions things he picked up from the other six managers he worked under: from Allardyce’s rigorous work on defending and now-Fulham head coach Silva’s “incredible enthusiasm” and attention to detail, to the “intelligence” and human qualities of Lampard as he rallied the club and the fans during last season’s relegation battle.
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Seven very different managers, yet all, to varying degrees, have struggled at Everton.
“It’s not good, is it?” Ferguson says. “The fans are going through the ringer. They (the club) are just not getting it right.”
Why not? “You know, I’ve got my own thoughts on that, to keep to myself, but they’re just not getting it right.”
Is there a plan? “There’s been a plan. But maybe just not a very good one. The owner (Farhad Moshiri) has brought people in that he’s trusted, he’s put his money where his mouth is and he’s brought in experienced people. You cannot blame Farhad Moshiri for what’s happening. I’m sure Everton will feel that every time they make a purchase or an appointment, it’s a good decision, but unfortunately, history shows at the moment that it’s not. A lot of clubs go through that period.”
Ferguson wanted to be the man who brought back the good times at Goodison, as he felt he was during that brief spell as caretaker manager in 2019. But having been bypassed for the top job at Everton three times in just over two years, he felt it was time to pursue his managerial ambitions elsewhere.
“I need to do it,” he told the club’s official website last summer. “I need to take the next step.”
Ferguson didn’t imagine he would be starting in the League One basement. Discussions with Blackburn Rovers reached an advanced stage and he feels he was close to getting the job at Middlesbrough, another Championship club, only to be pipped by Michael Carrick. A few other possibilities came and went.
Then, out of nowhere, came the approach from Forest Green.
“I knew about the club — I’d seen the owner (Dale Vince) on the telly, but I couldn’t have told you where in the country it was,” he says. “My agent told me on the Wednesday night they wanted to speak to me the next day, 12 o’clock. So I got in the car, drove down, met with Dale and we clicked. I liked him straight away.”
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Ferguson and Forest Green sounds an unlikely fit. “Why? Do you look at me and think I must be a big meat-eater? Is that what it is?” he laughs.
Well, he was on record as saying his favourite meal was steak and chips.
“Look, I was a country boy growing up,” he says. “I’ve always loved nature. I’ve kept pigeons, greyhounds, rabbits, ferrets. That’s me. And the world is changing. It’s warming up. If we don’t do something, there’ll be no snow, honestly. No icebergs left, no polar bears, no pandas. They’re chopping down the Amazon rainforest and it’s shocking. It’s getting warmer. You can see it in front of you.
“I didn’t know a lot about the vegan stuff until I came here, but I know about global warming and it’s incredible what the owner has done here — and maybe hiring me has put a bit more focus on the club.”
He’s not wrong. On the day Ferguson was appointed as Ian Burchnall’s replacement, Forest Green’s Twitter following increased by more than 10 per cent. The club’s official announcement got 6.1 million views on Twitter, almost double their entire social media output for the previous month.
Those photographs of him and Vince holding their burgers have been great for publicity, too.
🗣 "I look forward to eating that later." 🌱 🟢
New head coach Duncan Ferguson is ready to embrace the meat-free policy at Forest Green Rovers admitting he has never eaten vegan food before pic.twitter.com/GBIHLOMIiB
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) January 26, 2023
A week later, the vegan pies and curry at the training ground get a big Ferguson thumbs-up.
“The food here is really good. Remember, I’ve been in Barlinnie,” he says, a reference to his six weeks in prison when he was found guilty of assault after headbutting Raith Rovers defender John McStay while playing for Rangers in 1994.
And the burgers? “I’ll try one if we win on Saturday.”
His first full day in the job brought another unexpected setback. The training pitch was frozen, so they had to borrow another council facility nearby.
“It was a plastic pitch at a social club,” he says. “So I’m in the communal bar area, addressing the players, and we’re waiting for the girls and young ones to come off the pitch at 11 o’clock so we can go on and train,” he says.
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What will a Ferguson team look like? “I want us to play on the front foot and be hard to beat, exciting, aggressive; stop conceding goals,” he says. “We need to show real commitment and a never-say-die attitude. We need to stay in this division and we need to fight for every single point.”
He saw glimpses of that in his first game in charge, away to Shrewsbury Town on January 28. He’d only had one session with the players and was still learning most of their names, but a team that had taken just one point from the previous six games raced into an early lead and looked like claiming a rare win until two late sucker punches.
“On 94 minutes, we were 1-0 up and we’ve got three points,” he says. “After 98 minutes, we’d lost 2-1 and got no points. Unbelievable. But we need to focus better and manage the game better. After the equaliser, we just need to take the point.
“I want us to work really, really hard. When you work really hard, you feel better about yourself. I want them to do a hard day’s graft, then go home feeling proud of what they’ve done and enjoy that feeling.
“You need a tactical setup which works, but you also need to see that motivation in your players. They need to believe in you as a coach and you need to keep that fire burning inside them. When you’re a young kid, you get a job and you’re all excited running around, doing everything, grafting away. And then, over time, it maybe starts to go. We need to bring that back.”
Funnily enough, it sounds a lot like what Sean Dyche has been saying since taking over at Everton last week.
After a full week of training and a few comings and goings, including the signings of youngsters Charlie Savage, the son of former Wales and Leicester City midfielder Robbie, and Tyler Onyango on loan from Manchester United and Everton respectively, Ferguson feels his messages are starting to get through as they build towards his first home game in charge against Peterborough United.
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“It’s great being out there with them, out on the grass,” he says.
Peterborough’s manager Darren Ferguson has been in touch to welcome him to the madhouse of League One. They were team-mates in the Scotland Under-21 squad 30 years ago. How time flies.
There has also been a call from Darren’s father, Sir Alex, who tells him the two managers should be wearing the Ferguson tartan on the touchline on Saturday… Oh, and to get his opposite number a good bottle of wine.
“The last time I saw his dad, I ended up getting him a case of red wine,” he says. “All I seem to be doing is getting red wine for his family…”
Saturday afternoon at the New Lawn, where, rather than the usual parade of junk food, cryptocurrency traders and unknown gambling firms, the perimeter advertising is for vegan products, green-energy companies, wildlife charities and the Stop Oil campaign.
Courtesy of the club’s No 1 celebrity fan, there is also a hoarding that says “Jilly Cooper Loves Forest Green Rovers”. Again, you wouldn’t get that in the Premier League.
Waiting for Ferguson as he arrives at the dugout are a group of Everton fans with a banner that says, ‘Duncan had a pigeon’, after a terrace chant from his playing days.
“They’re friends of mine that I’ve known for years,” he says afterwards. “It’s good of them to come down.”
They’re not the only ones. Among others, there is Rodda Thomas, an Everton fan who has a pub in nearby Stroud.
“I’m a massive fan of Duncan,” Thomas says. “I saw him play his last game for Everton, saw the game against Villarreal (in a Champions League qualifier in 2005) when he scored that amazing goal that (Pierluigi) Collina couldn’t wait to disallow. He was a cult figure and we loved him.
“I’m chuffed to bits Duncan has got the manager’s job at Forest Green. I come down here from time to time, but this has inspired me to get a season ticket for the rest of the season for £95.”
The first half is slow and attritional. In some regards, against a Peterborough team competing for a play-off place, that feels like progress. But creating changes is a struggle.
Ferguson is on his feet throughout, encouraging his players (“Get tight, Son!”, “Inside, Son!”, “Watch out for that, Son!”, “That’s it, Robbo!”) and asking the fourth official to explain a series of unpopular refereeing decisions. “Welcome to League One refs, Dunc!” calls a fan in the main stand.
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The home fans seem to like what they are seeing, singing “Big Dunc’s at the wheel” to the tune of the Stones Roses’ Waterfall. It starts to look like Forest Green are edging towards a first clean sheet in nine games. But with 18 minutes left, there’s a clumsy challenge from Jordon Garrick, resulting in a Peterborough penalty, which Jonson Clarke-Harris converts. Hector Kyprianou compounds the home team’s misery with a well-taken second in stoppage time.
It leaves Forest Green with two defeats from Ferguson’s first two games in charge.
They led until the 94th minute against Shrewsbury and for 72 minutes were on course for a point against Peterborough. Yet they end up empty-handed and are seven points adrift of safety.
By the time Ferguson emerges for his post-match media huddle, darkness has fallen and the temperature has dropped.
A long, unhappy drive back north to Merseyside beckons.
“That was never a 2-0 game,” he says. “I thought we had a good shape about us. You could see the organisation. The players have taken a lot of instructions on. I thought we deserved a point. We were unfortunate. I must have hit a black cat in my car or something.”
The league standings make for grim reading.
“I don’t look at the table,” he says. “It would keep me up at night if I did. We’ve just got to keep going. I just concentrate on my job, which is to make these players better. And I think you can see that, can’t you?”
This is his first taste of senior football below the top flight, as a player or manager. His early impression of League One is that “there aren’t as many passing combinations, teams don’t stay in possession for long”. A lot of it comes down to winning the individual battles and fighting through the difficult periods — like Everton managed to in Dyche’s first game in charge on Saturday, beating league leaders Arsenal 1-0.
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Ferguson does still want to manage Everton one day. “That’s the dream, isn’t it? Everyone knows I’m an Everton man. That’s not going to change. But now Forest Green is my club — and they will tell me when I’m leaving this club. I will not be telling the owner here I’m leaving. I’ve told him that’s not my style. He’s given me this job and I will show that loyalty to him 100 per cent.”
It might feel a little like he’s on a hiding to nothing, signing up for a relegation battle at one of the smaller clubs in League One, but he feels emboldened by Vince’s long-term vision — a desire for sustainability on the pitch as well as off it.
“I’ve enjoyed the first week because I’m working. I’m a coach,” he says. “That’s what I love doing. It’s a passion of mine and I like a challenge. It doesn’t scare me. As people know, as you know, I’ve done it my whole life. I’ve done it the hard way.”
Just one last thing. No win means no vegan burger, I guess?
“Let’s hope I get one of them vegan burgers soon,” he laughs. “Otherwise they’ll be throwing them at me.”
(Top photo: Getty Images/The Athletic)
