Duncan Ferguson 's playing career featured a number of fiery moments, but that's nothing compared to his reaction when a friend ripped the head off his favourite pigeon.
Former Scotland international Ferguson, now manager of Forest Green Rovers, picked up a record-equalling eight red cards during his Premier League career. Off the field, though, his interests included keeping racing pigeons.
The striker was fond of the birds, as might be expected of someone with that pastime. While there were moments of anger on the field, the 51-year-old has revealed he has never been angrier than when he found out about what his friend had done to his favourite of the lot.
"I've had them for a long long time since I was a kid," Ferguson told the Tony Bellew is Angry podcast (via The Sun ). "Back in the day, my favourite pigeon was a pigeon called Super Gran. Believe it or not!
"You can name them, they're not all flying rats. So I keep pigeons and I still keep pigeons to this day, that calms me. I enjoy spending time with the pigeons.
"My beloved Super Gran, I gave it to a guy I knew at the time, he liked pigeons as well and he wanted a pigeon for breeding. So about three or four months later I've gone round to the lad and asked him have you got my pigeon, he'd pulled the head off it."
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Ferguson, perhaps unsurprisingly, didn't take too kindly to the discovery. "He said it was nae good, he said the pigeon was crap and it was sick or something," the Scot continued.
"I was only a young kid do you know what I mean. Crying my eyes out I was.
"That was probably one of the first times I threw a punch. I ended up scrapping with him because he pulled the head off my pigeon."
While Ferguson was young when the pigeon incident occurred, he would go on to play more than 400 senior games in England and Scotland. More than half of those appearances came across two spells with Everton, while he also turned out for Dundee United, Rangers and Newcastle.
After spending a number of years on Everton's coaching staff, he made his first foray into management in 2023 when he took the Forest Green job. “I’m really delighted to join FGR for the next step of my career, and I plan to be here for a while," he said after being unveiled. "We have a bit of a fight on our hands to stay up in League One and I am ready for the challenge."
