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|publisher=Setanta Sports website|title=Gers dealt huge Ferguson blow
|publisher=Setanta Sports website|title=Gers dealt huge Ferguson blow
|date=2008-07-10}}</ref> He returned to the first team on [[1 November]] in a 5-0 league win over Inverness at [[Ibrox Stadium|Ibrox]].
|date=2008-07-10}}</ref> He returned to the first team on [[1 November]] in a 5-0 league win over Inverness at [[Ibrox Stadium|Ibrox]].

Pn Friday 3rd April 2009 Bawwy was suspended from Rangers Football Club for drinking on international duty and singing sectarian songs.


==International career==
==International career==

Revision as of 11:29, 3 April 2009

This article is about the Scottish football player. For the Irish footballer, see Barry Ferguson (Irish footballer).
Barry Ferguson
Personal information
Full name Barry Ferguson, MBE
Height 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Position(s) Midfielder
Team information
Current team
 Rangers
Number 6
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1994–2003 Rangers
2003–2005 Blackburn Rovers
2005– Rangers
International career‡
1998– Scotland
*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 12 February 2009
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 12:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Barry Ferguson, MBE (born 2 February, 1978 in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire) is a Scottish professional footballer who plays in midfield. He currently plays for Scottish Premier League club Rangers and is the captain of the Scotland national team.

Ferguson holds the records for the number of European appearances made for a Scottish club and the record number of competitive European appearances by a Scottish footballer. Ferguson has played 82 matches on the continent. He has made more European appearances for Rangers than any other player and is also the only current player to be inducted into the Rangers F.C. Hall of Fame.

Club career

First spell at Rangers

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 fixture in the first team during 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.

Move to Blackburn Rovers

On 29 August 2003, Ferguson joined Premier League club Blackburn Rovers for a fee of £7.5 million[1]. With Everton also chasing Ferguson,[2] Rangers initially denied that he was leaving.[3] He made his Blackburn debut in a Premier League match against Liverpool on 19 September at Ewood Park[4]. His first goal came against the same team, during a League Cup match, also at Ewood Park, on 29 October.[5]

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, including a lengthy period out through injury after fracturing his kneecap in a Premiership match against Newcastle United[6], 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.[7] 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.[8] Ferguson would later reveal in his book that the fee Rangers paid was actually £2million, plus the fees Blackburn owed from the original transfer.

Return to Ibrox

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 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.

Ferguson was re-appointed captain at the start of the 2005-06 season, the then manager Alex McLeish did not want to remove it mid-season from Fernando Ricksen who held the position previously. He played the later part of the season carrying an ankle injury as Rangers limped into a poor third place finish in the SPL. At the end of the season, Ferguson revealed had had snapped ligaments and confessed that he should have undergone the surgery sooner.[9]

Ferguson was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire MBE on 17 June, 2006.[10]

Ferguson playing for Rangers against FC Barcelona in a UEFA Champions League match in 2007

On 1 January 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.[11] 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.[12] Following the resignation of Paul Le Guen as manager on 4 January,[13] Ferguson was re-instated to the Rangers side by caretaker manager Ian Durrant and was also re-appointed as captain. Later that year, sports journalist Graham Spiers published, Paul Le Guen: Enigma (ISBN 1845962915) 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. [14]

The 2007-08 season began well for Ferguson as he scored a brace in the first SPL match against Inverness.[15] 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.[16] 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.[17]

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.[18] 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.[19]

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.[20]

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.[21] He returned to the first team on 1 November in a 5-0 league win over Inverness at Ibrox.

Pn Friday 3rd April 2009 Bawwy was suspended from Rangers Football Club for drinking on international duty and singing sectarian songs.

International career

Ferguson made his international debut at the age of 20 against Lithuania national football team on 5 September, 1998.[22] However, an injury plagued season prevented him from picking up more caps. Indeed, Ferguson did not return to the Scotland set up until a year later, starting in a 2-1 win against Bosnia Herzegovina on 4 September 1999.

Ferguson played along side Craig Burley in both legs of Scotland's Euro 2000 play-off aggregate defeat to England. He was appointed captain of the national side in 2004 by then manager Berti Vogts following the retirement of Paul Lambert. Ferguson would tasted further play-off pain as he captained Scotland to a 6-1 aggregate loss against the Netherlands. Despite winning the first leg at Hampden Park 1-0, thanks to a James McFadden strike, a disastrous night in Amsterdam saw the side beaten 6-0 which ended the nations hopes of going to Euro 2004.

Ferguson has captained Scotland a total of 27 times. He lead the side to arguably one of the greatest results in the nations modern footballing history when they beat former World Champions France 1-0 at the Parc des Princes in Paris on 12 September 2007. This completed a double header of 1-0 wins against the French during the Euro 2008 qualifying campaign.

International goals

Scores and results list Scotland's goal tally first.
# Date Venue Opponent Score Result Competition
1. 30 May, 2000 Dublin, Ireland  Republic of Ireland 2-1 2-1 Friendly match
2. 7 September, 2002 Toftir, Faroe Islands  Faroe Islands 2-2 2-2 UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying
3. 17 November, 2007 Glasgow, Scotland  Italy 1-1 1-2 UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying

Career statistics

As of 12 February 2009

Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1996-97||rowspan="8"|Rangers||rowspan="2"|Premier Division||1||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||1||0 |- |1997-98||7||0||4||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||11||0 |- |1998-99||rowspan="6"|Premier League||23||1||3||0||4||1||10||0||40||2 |- |1999-00||31||4||5||1||1||0||12||0||49||5 |- |2000-01||30||2||3||1||3||1||11||0||47||4 |- |2001-02||22||1||5||2||3||1||9||3||39||7 |- |2002-03||36||16||6||2||4||0||2||0||48||18 |- |2003-04||3||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||2||0||5||0 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2003-04||rowspan="2"|Blackburn Rovers||rowspan="2"|Premier League||15||1||colspan="2"|-||1||1||colspan="2"|-||16||2 |- |2004-05||21||2||1||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||22||2 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2004-05||rowspan="5"|Rangers||rowspan="5"|Premier League||13||2||colspan="2"|-||2||0||colspan="2"|-||15||2 |- |2005-06||32||5||2||0||2||0||10||0||46||5 |- |2006-07||32||4||1||0||colspan="2"|-||8||3||41||7 |- |2007-08||38||7||3||0||3||1||18||1||62||9 |- |2008-09||15||0||1||0||1||0||0||0||17||0 Template:Football player statistics 3282||42||33||6||23||4||82||7||421||59 Template:Football player statistics 436||3||1||0||1||1||colspan="2"|-||38||4 Template:Football player statistics 5318||45||34||6||24||5||82||7||459||63 |}

Honours

With Rangers

Template:Sport honours Template:Sport honours Template:Sport honours

References

  1. ^ Rovers sign Ferguson BBC Sport Website (29 August 2003)
  2. ^ "Everton make Ferguson bid". BBC Sport website. 2003-08-27.
  3. ^ "Rangers could lose Ferguson". BBC Sport website. 2003-08-15.
  4. ^ Blackburn 1-3 Liverpool Soccerbase (19 September 2003)
  5. ^ Blackburn 3-4 Liverpool Soccerbase (29 October 2003)
  6. ^ Rovers rue Ferguson injury blow Telegraph.co.uk (29 December 2003)
  7. ^ "Ferguson turned off by Rovers tie". BBC Sport website. 2005-02-16.
  8. ^ "Ferguson clinches Rangers return". BBC Sport website. 2005-02-01.
  9. ^ "Ferguson relief at Le Guen plans". BBC Sport website. 2006-05-18.
  10. ^ "Thorpe/Ferguson head honours list". BBC Sport website. 2006-06-16.
  11. ^ "Le Guen points blame at Ferguson". BBC Sport website. 2007-01-02.
  12. ^ "Boyd makes point as Barry sideshow engulfs Rangers". Evening Times. 2007-01-03.
  13. ^ "Le Guen and Rangers part company". BBC Sport website. 2007-01-04.
  14. ^ Paul Le Guen: Enigma - A Chronicle of Trauma and Turmoil at Rangers, Random House, ISBN 1845962915
  15. ^ "Inverness CT 0-3 Rangers". BBC Sport website. 2007-08-04.
  16. ^ "Rangers 3-0 Celtic". BBC Sport website. 2007-10-20.
  17. ^ "Ferguson admits to handling ball". BBC Sport website. 2008-01-30.
  18. ^ "Ferguson ready for Euro landmark". BBC Sport website. 2008-03-05.
  19. ^ ""I won't let the pain get to me"". www.eveningtimes.co.uk. 2008-04-10.
  20. ^ "Zenit St Petersburg 2-0 Rangers". BBC Sport website. 2008-05-14.
  21. ^ "Gers dealt huge Ferguson blow". Setanta Sports website. 2008-07-10.
  22. ^ "Lithuania v Scotland". The SFA Website. 14 November 2007.
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