THE FERGUSON FAMILY
BY DAVID O’DORNAN DARREN FERGUSON has lifted the lid on how hard it was to start his football career under his legendary father Sir Alex at Manchester United.
He also questioned his decision to turn down Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest to sign for his dad – and then make just 27 appearances in a four-year spell.
Ferguson, 48, said: “Yeah, it was difficult. There was no nepotism, that’s for sure. I found it really tough.
“I recall I’d been at Forest and Tottenham and I was about to sign for Forest and I actually got called up to go and play for Scotland, so the day that I got called up I was meant to go in and sign for Forest.
“And at the time they were developing and producing a lot of young players, Clough was the manager.
“Then I had to go to go to Manchester and fly to Belfast anyway. When I came back, my dad said, ‘Look, we want to sign ye’.
“I can visualise it now. And I could tell he was quite hesitant but his coaches were like, ‘You’ve got to sign Darren, you’ve got to sign him’.
“You cannae turn down Man United, you just can’t, you know? But looking back, I probably think I don’t know if it was the right thing to do.”
The midfielder was shipped out to Wolves in 1994 where he enjoyed a better run of games in a five-year stint before a year with Sparta Rotterdam and ending his playing career with Wrexham.
Although he reckons he was on a hiding to nothing at Old Trafford because he was the manager’s son, Ferguson also accepts he was not good enough to stay there in the end.
He said: “You’ve got to remember, when I was an apprentice at United, my dad didn’t have the success then, he hadn’t got the power he eventually got. He was under a lot of pressure.
“So it was tough for both of us and I knew, because I lived with him, how much pressure he was under. He was leaving me out in games when he shouldn’t have been leaving me out and he’d admit that himself, one or two in particular.
“But, you know, it was tough. The relationship wasn’t what it is with a normal father-son relationship. I’ve spoken to other people, Gavin Strachan’s my assistant manager, his dad’s Gordon, he was the same.
“He played for him and it just doesn’t become a father-son relationship. It’s a working one which I suppose it has to be.
“When I was younger you’d go home with him and he’d