Wish You Were Here!...

They came  into March like lions but threaten to close the month like lambs; the Merseyside derby is only days away and many are worried about Everton's Premier League slump - what we'd give for a fully fit Duncan Ferguson to put a pugnacious pigeon amongst the Reds right now?

Everton may be going into this Anfield matchup with a number of poor recent results, but the Merseyside derby is such a ridiculously hard game to call that it is entirely possible that we could turn in a similar performance to the Fiorentina game at Goodison, or even turn out a damp squib of a performance as we did in Florence. Whilst Arteta played out of his skin in that fateful Fiorentina game at Goodison, he has looked like he's been bodysnatched in others...which pretty much sums up Everton's March in microcosm.

This Sunday's game will be intoxicating not only because both sides of Merseyside are so close but also because this is our first game against them since they started off our great run with their Clattenburg assisted victory at Goodison - this game promises to be a classic derby, and the mother of all six pointers.

  I was too young to be aware of either the '86 or '89 beatings that we received from Liverpool - and my only memory is my dad responding to the news that his car had been robbed with a nonplussed shrug. Everton were too busy monopolizing his angst, and our FA Cup win in '95 still seems like an out-of-body experience, a warped karmic pay-off for our relegation battles.

There are no seasons more exciting than when Everton and Liverpool threaten to collide, and this year both sides are locked in a death-roll for fourth place. But derby day doesn't just conjour up images of breakneck matches littered with flare-ups, it also reminds me of Duncan Ferguson.

Duncan the man mountain was a walking paradox, a tough Scot who spent time in Barlinnie prison, who at home was a quiet pigeon fancier, and who on the pitch was distilled, unpredictable brilliance. Put an Everton fan up front for his team and he will throw his heart and soul into the game, charging into tackles, attempting impossible shots, and in all probability ending up being sent off - and that is exactly what you got with Duncan.

Shirt un-tucked, bedraggled Grange Hill socks, and a scowl as long as a milkman's round. The one man you wanted in the box in injury time, but who never fulfilled his potential due to his time injured. Picture Peter Crouch mixed with Eric Cantona - with not so much an itchy trigger finger, but more of a clenched fist hovering over the big red nuclear button. A cold warrior he was not - Ferguson had a molten rage that boiled his blue blood.

For most of his time at Everton, and in large part due to his mute silence when dealing with the press, he was an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, swallowed whole by a chameleon on acid.

One moment Big Dunc would be throttling a hapless opponent, or getting sent off for unleashing a salvo of verbal abuse so obscene that it would make Caligula blush; the next second he would be galloping clear and finishing with net-tearing glee, or leaping for a header and achieving such altitude that no one knew if he was stretching for the ball or the sun. And such was Dunc’s charisma that you fully believed he could reach either.

Regarded as a felon by the Scottish FA, and criminally treated by them to such an extent that he wouldn’t play for them even if they begged (and how could Scotland have done with a Duncan Ferguson?) – Everton were his only team, and his Everton tattoo a message to the fans that he was one of us.

Ferguson was the antithesis of controlled aggression, a raging bull in a china shop, who on occasion would dust himself down and drink from the tea set, pinkie held aloft.

The bond between Everton and Dunc was forged the moment he scored that goal against Liverpool, a towering skyscraper of a header, the kind that Crouch should be capable of, and something that became a Ferguson calling card.

Sadly, one of the other things that Ferguson will be remembered for is his injuries. The marriage to Everton may have come with that Merseyside derby goal, but it was consummated on the treatment table. And it is for that reason that Dunc’s career will always be assessed as stuttering and half-formed, and a flock of ‘what ifs' will flap around whenever he is mentioned.

Whenever the Merseyside derby comes around it is Duncan Ferguson's name that bobs around my head like a gaudy buoy and I hope our current crop puts in a performance to make Duncan's Everton tattoo pulsate with pride. Wish you were here Duncan!

Ed Bottomley

Comments

[Dixies Boots]

Nice, Dunc was a cut above the rest without a doubt, but from 2000 to 2005 he knocked in 23 league goals, give me the Yak in his current form (however long that may last) every time.
These days Moyes has a squad rather than a talisman, who are capable of showing the rowdies up on Sunday.
The bloke behind me called the Yak "The Black Bob Latchford" last week,so all together now

"Yakubu Aiyegbeni walks on water"

[JC]

"Once a blue, always a blue"...except for Wayne Rooney....and Michael Owen....and Ian Rush....oh, and Robbie Fowler. Sorry to explode the myth guys but once a blue, always a blue (unless you get an offer from a bigger club!).

[Mark]

Disagree

much as I loved Dunc, with him on the pitch we'd resort to long balls over the top of midfield, before he got sent off after 20 mins

Anyway chances are he'd not be fully fit...

[Dave Walsh]

Good article..invokes the spirit of Big Dunc........Feed The Yak and We,ll come forth,,!!!

[Mark Crabtree]

Duncan is our hero
He wears the number 9
He wears his shirt with pride
He wears it all the time

He wears it in the shower
He wears it as a vest
Duncan is our HERO!!

he is the F**kin best!!!

Once a blue always a blue!!!