Today marks the 30th anniversary of Duncan Ferguson’s headbutt on Raith Rovers star Jock McStay at Ibrox.
The striker – who joined Rangers from Dundee United just nine months earlier – later became the first and only professional player in Britain to be jailed for an on-field offence, spending 44 days in Barlinnie prison.
Incredibly, referee Kenny Clark missed the assault but would go on to book Ferguson for over-celebrating after the £4 million man from Stirling broke his Gers duck in the second half.
The April 16 1994 flashpoint remains one of the Scottish game’s most controversial moments.
How have those involved in the incident reflected on it over the years?
Duncan Ferguson
Former Scotland striker Ferguson was on probation for an attack in Anstruther the previous year when the McStay incident happened.
He was found guilty of assaulting a fisherman in a pub in the Fife town.
That came just months after he was fined £250 for punching and kicking a postman who was on crutches in a Stirling taxi queue.
In 1991, he was convicted of headbutting a policeman in his home city and fined £125.
Speaking to Everton’s club TV channel in 2019, Goodison Park legend Ferguson opened up on his time in jail.
The 52-year-old – a Toffees player when he was sent to prison – said: “It was wrong me being there, it wasn’t fair.
“I shouldn’t have been in there and I think a lot of people understood that.
“It’s not as if I was in for doing anything bad, really. My God, it was nothing.
“The fans got me through it, a lot of them wrote to me. It was unbelievable, all the letters and the support that I got.
“I got all the letters when I was in there and obviously you have got a lot of time on your hands when you’re in there to read through them all.
“It definitely gets you through it and you never forget those things.”
He also reflected on the experience in February 2023 in a podcast interview with former boxing champion Tony Bellew.
Ferguson, now Inverness Caley Thistle manager, said: “I didn’t feel I should have been in prison. I felt I should have got community service.
“It was a nothing incident. I’m telling you straight. I never touched the lad.
“I basically grazed him. If I had hit him, I’d have hit him. We played on. Both of us played on. I scored in the game!”
He added: “I was only 22 when I went to prison.
“It was tough on me at the time. And it does test you when you are walking into those halls.
“You are on your own. And, of course, I played for Rangers.
“Barlinnie is in the middle of Glasgow. So half the jail is blue and half is green. It’s not easy.”
Jock McStay
The Raith Rovers legend battled depression in the aftermath of the assault.
He was released by the Stark’s Park club – then managed by former Rangers star Jimmy Nicholl – following their relegation from the top flight at the end of the 1993/94 campaign.
In 2019, the 58-year-old told The Scotsman: “No one knows I had it (depression). No one apart from my wife really knows.
“I was on medication for 18 years. It changed me, put it that way.
“I am not blaming the headbutt. Things happen in life. Getting divorced as well.
“I stopped playing football at the same time. Everything just happened. Things happen in life you cannot handle.
“But I lost a bit of belief, hope. I could not handle not being at Raith Rovers anymore.
“That’s the thing, I was only 28 when it happened – it felt as if I was maybe in my 30s, at the end of my career.
“I was only 28 and that was it. Done.”
McStay, now a maintenance man for Celtic, has questioned referee Kenny Clark’s claim he didn’t see the incident that left him with a cut lip.
Five years earlier he also expressed his disappointment at how Nicholl handled his Rovers exit.
McStay – who played 334 games for Raith, winning the First Division title in 1993 – said: “It was the timing of the whole thing.
“After we got relegated I was told I was getting a new contract. I went on the pre-season tour, did all the training and played in all the games.
“Not many people know this but they waited until the last day of pre-season – the Friday before we played St Johnstone – to let me go.
“He (Nicholl) took me into the office in the morning and just told me they were releasing me.
“I don’t know why they waited until that day. Why not just tell me there was no contract on the last day of the season?
“It couldn’t have been to do with needing to prove myself in the First Division. I’d just played 40-odd games in the Premier League.
“To release me was just bizarre and heartbreaking.”
McStay went on to play for Falkirk, Hamilton Accies, Clydebank, East Fife, Ayr United, Clyde and Albion Rovers.
He was inducted into Raith Rovers’ Hall of Fame in 2015.
Kenny Clark
At Ferguson’s trial the whistler said he did not see the incident and had instead, after blowing for a foul, turned to indicate which side had been awarded the free-kick.
A video of the incident was shown in court, with Clark saying he would have sent the striker off for violent conduct had he witnessed what happened.
The 62-year-old retired official, now an SFA referees’ observer, later said: “That was the lowest time for me. I knew I’d made a genuine mistake.
“I didn’t see it so I couldn’t do anything about it.
“It wasn’t that I’d copped out of a decision.”
Clark described the controversy as “horrible to go through”.
And in a 2013 newspaper column, he wrote: “I awarded a free-kick against Ferguson, turned to point up the park and when I turned back McStay was lying in a heap and Danny Lennon was shouting at me.”
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