Ian Ferguson's fury from afar

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Ian Ferguson's fury from afar as former Rangers star admits his heart is broken by recent Ibrox turmoil

 

Ian Ferguson is saddened by the current state of the Ibrox club

Ferguson played for Rangers for 12 years from 1988-2000

The Scot is now the manager and director of football at Northern Fury

 

In the small Australian city of Townsville, locals assume the name of their football club is a nod towards the tropical cyclones that batter the Northern Queensland coast at this time of the year.

 

Spend 30 minutes in conversation with the man who doubles as manager and director of football at Northern Fury, though, and you could be forgiven for believing the team were named after him.

 

Ask Ian Ferguson — formerly of this manor — about his hopes and ambitions for the fledgling Queensland State side and he speaks in calm, measured tones.

 

Yet, when the topic turns to his first love, you appreciate it is maybe no bad thing that 10,000 miles currently separates him from Ibrox.

 

If absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder, then what the 47-year-old has witnessed from afar over the past four years has threatened to break his.

 

One of just three players to have featured in every one of the Nine-in-a-Row seasons, Ferguson now barely recognises the emaciated beast a once proud club has become.

 

‘It’s really sad. It breaks my heart sitting over here and seeing what’s going on,’ he tells Sportsmail.

 

‘It actually makes it more frustrating when you are so far away.’

 

Distance and a sizeable time difference have proven no barriers to one of the club’s great midfield war horses keeping up to speed on the whole sorry saga. But it’s long since got to the stage where flicking on the tablet for a daily update is an act undertaken with considerablme trepidation.

 

Like the vast majority of Rangers supporters, as far as Ferguson is concerned, there is no ambiguity as to where the blame for the current shambles lies.

 

‘We just want our club back and for it to be in good hands,’ he states. ‘At this moment in time, it’s not in good hands.

 

‘Every single day, you look online and it’s story after story after story — each one more negative than the last.

 

‘You just wonder what these guys (in the boardroom) are doing. Don’t treat the Rangers fans like idiots because that’s one thing they are not. They know the game and what’s going on here.

 

‘They won’t stand for mediocre people in the club.’

 

An £850,000 capture from St Mirren in 1988, it was Ferguson’s good fortune to join Rangers at the outset of an unprecedented period of dominance in the Scottish game.

 

And yet, as a lifelong supporter of the club, he needed no one to point out the folly in taking the good times for granted.

 

Before the arrival of Graeme Souness as player/manager in 1986, the Ibrox outfit had been also-rans in the Premier League since 1978.

 

Under John Greig in the early 80s, crowds often struggled to reach five figures — the kind of paltry numbers no one inside the club ever thought they’d witness again.

 

‘You always thought: “This is Rangers FC” and it would never fall so far. Not in a million years,’ Ferguson reflects.

 

‘When you see Rangers playing to an 11,000 crowd (against Raith Rovers), when is the penny going to drop? It’s just diabolical.

 

‘Not so long ago, they were getting 50,000 every second week. What the hell has been going on for it to reach this point?’

 

The question is rhetorical. Ferguson knows well the whole sorry story involving Sir David Murray, Craig Whyte, Charles Green, the Easdale brothers and Mike Ashley. A catalogue of self-inflicted wounds by the so-called custodians of the club.

 

That the scale of the mess is nuclear is beyond dispute. The pertinent question now is what happens to clean it up.

 

‘I think the whole place needs a total clear-out from top to bottom. We’ve got to start afresh,’ Ferguson muses.

 

‘The board just don’t listen. I hope that (Dave) King and the Three Bears get in and the shareholders vote this board out. They are treating Rangers fans and shareholders with total contempt.

 

‘Why are they taking this EGM to London? Is it to prevent people coming down and voting?

 

‘If it is, they really are vastly underestimating Rangers fans. They are sick and tired of what’s happening.

 

‘How can these guys believe that they are doing a good job?

 

‘What is it they don’t understand? They are not liked or wanted. Rangers fans want them out and people who will bring the club forward in.

 

‘Whether that takes another four, five, six years, then so be it. That’s what we have to do.’

 

While Ferguson holds the men at the top ultimately responsible for the mess beneath them, they are not the only targets of his considerable ire.

 

A man who seemed born to play in Old Firm matches, he tuned on his television a week past on Sunday to watch the League Cup semi-final with Celtic far more in hope than expectation.

 

He was wise to approach the game with pessimism. Not only did Rangers fail to progress, they failed to lay a glove on their great rivals.

 

For Ferguson, not even managing to ruffle Celtic’s feathers was entirely unacceptable. ‘They should at least have a bit of pride and passion,’ he adds. ‘It was the first Old Firm game for three years and the boy (Scott) Brown was right — it was probably the easiest derby win in history.

 

‘It was heartbreaking to see a Rangers team lose so easily.

 

‘Don’t make excuses. I’ve heard the boy Ian Black making plenty about the referee bottling it and not sending Brown off. He got intimidated, bullied and his backside kicked. It’s as simple as that.

 

‘Then I see someone else (Fraser Aird) saying they wanted to play Celtic in the Scottish Cup because they wanted another crack at them.

 

‘He should have been worrying about beating Raith Rovers first.

 

‘There are absolutely no excuses for what they’ve been turning in on the park.’

 

There is, however, boundless sympathy for Kenny McDowall. A team-mate of Ferguson’s when St Mirren won the 1987 Scottish Cup, the caretaker manager presently looks like he’d rather be working in Siberian salt mines.

 

‘The fact Kenny is working his notice tells you a story about him,’ Ferguson says. ‘He has basically had enough and hasn’t been able to do what he wants.

 

‘I’m reading in the papers that this guy Derek Llambias told Kenny to play these (Newcastle) players and then Llambias comes out and says he never. He’s basically calling Kenny McDowall a liar.

 

‘I know who I believe. I’ve known Kenny for a number of years and he doesn’t shirk out of decisions or anything he’s been told to do.

 

‘If he doesn’t agree with something, he’ll tell you. But these guys are putting that much pressure on him.

 

‘It’s a shame he’s landed the job in these circumstances. It’s the same with Ally McCoist.

 

‘The club is in such a sad, stricken way. I don’t think any other manager has had to put up with what these guys have had to and I really feel for them.’

 

McCoist, like Ferguson, is now watching matters unfold from afar. Does the latter believe the Ibrox icon — and the club at large — missed a trick three years ago by not flooding the first team with youth?

 

‘I don’t think it was a missed opportunity,’ he insists. ‘There are still kids coming through but are they ready to play for Rangers?

 

‘Do they understand what it means to play for that club and the pressures that brings?

 

‘Some people handle pressure differently. Not everyone can handle it. Some just get on with it.

 

‘The Premiership next season is going to be a really tough gig for those kids.’

 

That is, of course, assuming Rangers get there.

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2950115/Ian-Ferguson-s-fury-afar-former-Rangers-star-admits-heart-broken-recent-Ibrox-turmoil.html#ixzz3RVyUij2d

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‘Not so long ago, they were getting 50,000 every second week. What the hell has been going on for it to reach this point?’

 

The question is rhetorical. Ferguson knows well the whole sorry story involving Sir David Murray, Craig Whyte, Charles Green, the Easdale brothers and Mike Ashley. A catalogue of self-inflicted wounds by the so-called custodians of the club.

 

Always liked you Ian. Can you come back and chase them out please?

An Ian Ferguson stare down was a pretty fearful thing for the opposition in the past.