Big Dunc:I'm not the hard case that everyone makes me out to be

HE once beat a burglar so badly, his wife thought he had killed him.

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He has four assault convictions, the last of which landed him in one of Britain's toughest jails.

In his playing career, he collected nine red cards - including a joint-record eight in the Premier League.

But former Rangers, Everton and Newcastle United striker Duncan Ferguson insists: "I'm not the big hard case that everyone makes me out to be.

"I've got the record. I've got the red cards, they are there. I've got other things that happened to me off the field, they are there. But I'm not that man.

"You get that reputation. You have got to deal it with your whole life... Big Dunc, the hardest man in football. Let me tell you... I've never even been the hardest man in my dressing-rooms."

Three decades on from that stretch in Barlinnie, the Glasgow prison known as The Big Hoose, for headbutting Raith Rovers defender John McStay during a game, it is fair to say Ferguson has mellowed out a bit. Or a lot.

But while he reckons his reputation has not always been that fair, he never seemed keen to shake it off.

The big number 9 was a menace to opponents in more ways than one - tall, strong and clever, he was known for his bullet headers but could also unleash a ferocious shot. And heaven help any defender who tried to get in his way.

Ferguson's autobiography, Big Dunc, is released next week, a searingly honest account of his life, including a painful reflection on his 44 days in Barlinnie.