Rangers FC: Barry Ferguson (Club Captain)

[DavidMc]

Barry Ferguson

Club career

Early career
Ferguson has been a keen Rangers fan since childhood. His older brother, Derek, was a rising star in the Rangers team in the 1980s (though the younger sibling's achievements would eventually eclipse those of the older) and the young Barry was exposed to the inner circle of the club long before officially joining the Rangers first team squad in 1994-95. Ferguson made his first team debut on the last day of the 1996-97 season against Hearts and was voted man of the match for his performance. He became a permanent first team fixture in the 1998-99 season under new manager Dick Advocaat.

He soon became the youngest ever captain of the team in the 2001-02 season, successfully guiding his team to a League Cup and Scottish Cup double. This was also the first season in charge for Alex McLeish. During their second season together (2002-03), Ferguson captained the side to a domestic treble. He also won Scottish Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year and Scottish PFA Players' Player of the Year.


Blackburn Rovers
At the start of the 2003-04 season, he joined English Premiership club Blackburn Rovers for a fee of £7.5 million. With Everton also chasing Ferguson,[1] Rangers initially denied that he was leaving.

Graeme Souness made Ferguson captain of Blackburn in July 2004 and he seemed to be adapting well to Premiership football, despite the team still struggling and a managerial change, which saw Mark Hughes replacing Souness. However, after just 16 months at the club, Ferguson submitted a written transfer request, admitting that the draw of playing in the Premiership and a Lancashire derby could not compare with an Old Firm match.[3] After much discussion between the clubs, a fee of £4.5 million was agreed and Ferguson rejoined Rangers just before the close of the transfer window in January 2005.[4] Ferguson would later reveal in his book that the fee Rangers paid was actually £2.0 million pounds plus the fees Blackburn owed from the original transfer.


Rangers
Ferguson returned for the end of the 2004-05 season. His second debut came in a League Cup semi final victory over Dundee United. Ferguson came on as a 69th minute substitute for Alex Rae during the 7-1 win. His first goal since his arrival was the opening goal in a 1-1 draw against Inverness CT on 5 March 2005. Ferguson played in the 2005 League Cup final and was part of the Rangers team that won the league on the last day of the season.


2005-06
Ferguson was re-appointed captain at the start of the season, McLeish did not want to remove it mid-season from Fernando Ricksen. He played the last part of the season carrying an ankle injury. This was later revealed to be snapped ligaments and he confessed that he should have undergone the surgery sooner

Ferguson was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire MBE on June 17, 2006.

2006-07
On January 1, 2007 it was announced on a Sportsound broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland that Ferguson had been stripped of the Rangers captaincy after a meeting with manager Paul Le Guen. He was also dropped from the squad for the next match. Later Le Guen claimed Ferguson was undermining him. The match at Motherwell was won 1-0 by Rangers, and goalscorer Kris Boyd reportedly showed solidarity with the deposed skipper by holding up 6 fingers: Ferguson's shirt number. Following the resignation of Paul Le Guen as Rangers manager on January 4, 2007, Ferguson was re-instated to the Rangers side. Later that year, sports journalist Graham Spiers published, Paul Le Guen: Enigma, documenting his tenure at the club. According to Spiers, Le Guen left the club because he was being "undermined" by other Rangers personnel, including Ferguson and then club doctor, Ian McGuinness. New manager Walter Smith, immediately re-appointed Ferguson as captain.


2007-08
The 2007-08 season began well for Ferguson as he scored a brace in the first SPL match against Inverness. His scoring form continued and he netted the second in a 3-0 win over rivals Celtic as well as in the UEFA Champions League against VfB Stuttgart. The Old Firm goal was Ferguson's first against Celtic since the 2002 Scottish Cup final where he scored a free-kick in a 3-2 win for Rangers. In January 2008, he scored a controversial goal in Rangers' Scottish League Cup semi-final defeat of Hearts. Ferguson later admitted handling the ball in the build up to the goal but that the infringement was unintentional.

Ferguson broke David Narey's record for the number of European appearances made for a Scottish club, by starting in the UEFA Cup match against Werder Bremen; being his 77th game on the continent. He also broke Kenny Dalglish's record for the number of competitive European appearances by a Scottish footballer when he played his 80th game against Sporting Lisbon in the quarter final second leg.

On 14 May 2008, Ferguson made his 400th appearance for Rangers in the UEFA Cup Final against Zenit Saint Petersburg at City of Manchester Stadium. He captained the side to a 2-0 defeat.


2008-09
The summer of 2008 saw Ferguson undergo an operation on a fresh injury problem that would see him ruled out until early November. The injury was not the same one that plagued him towards the end of the last season.


International career
Ferguson made his international debut at the age of 20 against Lithuania national football team on September 5, 1998.