I went from targetman to target

I BELIEVE I'm a brave man, tough physically and mentally, but when I was led handcuffed into HMP Barlinnie on October 11, 1995, my blood ran cold.

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I was only 23 but my life was on hold, even at risk. I was entering Britain's most notorious prison with its huge stone walls, barbed wirewound around the top and forbidding metal doors that had all the charm of the brass plate on a coffin.

Outside, I was Big Dunc. Striker.

Everton and Scotland targetman.

Inside, I was the target. And I was terrified. I'd just lost my appeal against a three-month sentence for what the courts claimed was an assault on another player, Raith Rovers' John McStay, at Ibrox Park on April 16, 1994. I hardly grazed the boy, I promise you.

It happened while I'd been playing for Rangers in Glasgow and I just ended up feeling like some people in the Scottish judiciary didn't like the club. They were probably delighted to see me banged up in Barlinnie.

As I entered the prison, I thought, "What on earth is happening to me? What's happening to my life? How has it come to this?" Yes, I connected with the lad, but to face this hell because of that incident felt terribly unfair.

I was marched through the small, dingy reception area and into the holding cubicles, known as doggy boxes. I sat for several hours on a bench inside, with food and cigarette butts on the floor, and graffiti on the walls, surrounded by men with "Mars bars" - scars.

Everywhere I looked I sensed menace. My stomach knotted as I completed the cold, clinical elements of being processed.

Clothes off. An invasive inspection. A lingering sense of humiliation.

Unsmiling guards gave me my number - 12718and handed me my gear, a red shirt with white stripes and blue denim trousers.

Every part of the process dehumanised me further.