In Search of Duncan Ferguson

Mar 24, 2025 8:23 AM

Author:Alan Pattullo

He was one of the hardest, most controversial footballers of his generation: the £20million man who became the first professional player to go to jail for an offence committed on the field of play. He was the fans’ hero who disappeared.

Duncan Ferguson was an old-fashioned Scottish centre-forward who went from a boarding house in Dundee to the marble staircase of Rangers in a record-breaking transfer.

His £4m move from Dundee United to Ibrox made him British football’s most expensive native player. But he would also become one of the most notorious footballers in the land. Sent to prison after head-butting an opponent during a Scottish Premier Division match between Rangers and Raith Rovers, Ferguson made history all over again.

He served half of a three-month sentence in Glasgow’s infamous Barlinnie Prison. A twelve-match ban from the Scottish Football Association was later overturned following a long appeal process. Bruised by the experience, he turned his back on Scotland’s national team and the media.

Ferguson reaped the riches of the Sky era. He was a folk hero at Everton, where he spent ten years either side of an injury-hit spell at Newcastle United. Although the game made him a millionaire, he rejected its new culture of celebrity and remained a fiery figure, racking up a Premiership record of eight red cards. And then, after scoring in the final minute of the last game of his career, he turned his back on football completely – or so it seemed.

Reviews

An illuminating, well-sourced and forensic examination of the enigma of British football

—— Henry Winter

A truly exceptional football biography, a study of one of the game’s great enigmas… sensitive and beautifully written

—— Patrick Barclay

Duncan Ferguson’s life brought to book at last… gripping

—— Scotsman

One of football’s biggest enigmas…The author has painstakingly interviewed and researched every aspect of the player’s life

—— scotlandnow.dailyrecord

An exciting brand of nonfiction depicting the darker side of the American dream. An intimate, front-row look at two stories of hope, glory, and violence

—— Vogue

Best book I read this year

—— Alex Massie (on twitter)

Nothing else felt as strong and smart and fresh and honest this year - nothing else whipped my head around the way something great and truly new does

—— Lev Grossman , Salon

An intelligent, funny, and utterly captivating look at a surprising subculture

—— Buzzfeed

Thrown does what all literature aspires to do - to bring us into a community, a universe, we did not know we cared about and in the end leave us shattered and revealed

—— Los Angeles Times

The most fascinating book I've read this year. The precision of Howley's prose reminds me of Joan Didion or David Foster Wallace

—— Time

The fight book of our generation has landed. Thrown is a fantastic debut

—— The Week

A poetic portrait of a bloody American subculture, and a knockout of a nonfiction debut

—— O, The Oprah Magazine

As dark and funny as anything I have read this year

—— Washington Post

Kerry Howley embarks on a quest for ecstasy delivered in an unexpected forum: MMA fights. This transfixing nonfiction narrative combines bloody play-by-play with philosophical inquiry, delivering serious punches. Welcome to the Octagon

—— Playboy

Skidelsky explores the evolution of modern tennis, the role of beauty in sport and the psychology of fandom, weaving his own past into the story

—— Gransnet

Excellent

—— Andy Bull , Observer

One of the areas in which Lister really does a fantastic job is balance of opinion. The author has his own views, some more common sense than others, but he gives column inches to all sides of a story and allows everyone a chance to state their case… here's an excellent balance between sport and life. It gives great insight into some fascinating individuals and doesn't shirk the big issues. It's comprehensive, an easy read and never overstays its welcome… This book is a must read for the cricket fan out there, full of interesting stories, tales from the tour and a really close look at one of the best sporting outfits of all-time.

—— Wexford People

Cowen is without doubt one of our best current writers on landscape, on a par with Roger Deakin, Richard Mabey and Robert MacFarlane

—— Solitary Walker blog

Wonderful … An eerie haunting book … rendered with hair-raising, almost hallucinogenic, lyricism. Cowen moves on through the seasons of the year and the creatures of the edge land, feeling, more than observing, how the improving circumstances of animal life mirror his own climb out of darkness.

—— Brian Bethune , Maclean's

Blending natural history with a novelistic approach, Cowen revives his connection to the evocative, mysterious power of the natural world.

—— Sunday Express

A luminous nature book

—— Arminta Wallace , Irish Times

Very beautiful indeed... [Cowen] has all the alliterative grace and fresh metaphors of a poet

—— Rebecca Foster , New Books

[A] poetic memoir... This apparently scrappy and overlooked piece of wasteland - a tangle of wood, meadow, field and river - proves to be, under [Cowen's] forensic and magnifying gaze, brimming with riches.

—— Ruth Campbell , Northern Echo

He is engrossed by his landscape, enthralled by the minutiae and evokes the same fascination in the reader

—— Daily Mail

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