Duncan Ferguson, a former rival and current Rangers teammate, can lead Inverness to triumph, in Richard Gough’s opinion.(Photo: SNS)

The fact that Duncan Ferguson’s friends and former teammates who spoke about him for this article provided it without being asked gives it some validity, and the Inverness players would do well to heed it: You wouldn’t want to offend him, she said.

Many British football center backs from the 1990s, as well as a few clumsy home invaders, can attest to it.

The striker who became known as “Big Dunc” has held various positions including manager of Inverness, the most expensive player in British football history, an outcast from Scotland, a prisoner at Barlinnie, an all-time great at Everton, a hero at Newcastle, a trusted lieutenant to some of the best managers on the planet, an eco-warrior, and a (reluctant) vegan.

But another recurring theme from individuals who are familiar with him is that his public demeanor is very different from the truth. The description that keeps coming up is a gentle giant.

Richard Gough, who played with Ferguson at both Rangers and Everton, said of him, “He was a good guy.

He was misconstrued. He’s not someone you want to end yourself at odds with, though. The boy is difficult. He is not someone I would have bullied or sent to the practice field.

I occasionally think of him as a gentle giant. When you played against him, he was one of those people you didn’t want to enrage. I would be praising him and telling him how talented he was.

Ferguson’s former striking partner at Dundee United, Mixu Paatelainen, aptly captures the contrast in Ferguson.

Up front, we were like two enormous windmills, causing nose breaks and black eyes. Laughing, Paatelainen.

However, it must be noted that he was and still is a likeable individual. He is a fantastic buddy who will go above and beyond for you.

He is an excellent individual.

But can his qualities as a person also make him a great manager of the faltering Highlanders?

Given his enormous physical advantages over his peers, one might have expected Ferguson to stand out at Dundee United’s youth level, but given the caliber of players coming through at Tannadice at the time, it wasn’t immediately obvious that he would reach the highest levels of the game.

He was a huge, cocky person, according to Andy McLaren, another comrade.

I played on all of his childhood teams with him, and he was a great kid. It goes without saying that I wouldn’t have wanted to offend him.

As they claim

We have a really solid bunch, he added. We were all good, but the big man was good.

The combination of cocky teens and Jim McLean’s infamously authoritarian leadership would seem to be a formula for disaster, but McLaren recalls that “wee Jum” was skilled at handling his young outlaws and was able to keep them – for the most part – on the straight and narrow.

As McLaren put it, “We were young guys and we would, shall we say, enjoy ourselves.”

“These days, you couldn’t get away with that; if they caught a whiff of booze on you when you showed up for training, you wouldn’t be back.

“People will claim that as a result, it is better now than it was before, which is reasonable. nevertheless, not in my book.

Ferguson grew and started to have an influence. A large, gangly attacker who appeared to have a serious chance quickly gained notoriety.

Then-Rangers captain Gough stated, “In Scottish football, when there is a real diamond of a player, you get to hear about him.”

One of my pals from when I was a little child staying up in Dundee got in touch and mentioned that there was a 17-year-old up there who was going to be very outstanding.

Ferguson didn’t appear concerned about his chances of joining the star-studded United team at the time.