Including a showdown with bathroom tiles and a square go with the door, Ferguson wrote in his Daily Record column previously: “Let me tell you a story. Let me take you inside the Rangers dressing room on Old Firm day and show you something that not even my former team mates used to see.
The truth is I had to hide it from them because I was worried they’d think I was half daft if I’d ever let them into my little secret. Just before it was time to go out into the battle of a Glasgow derby, I had my own way of psyching myself up for the 90 minutes ahead – and most of them involved making sure I was in some sort of pain.
“So I’d wait until the boys were going through their routines. Some would be shouting, some sitting in silence staring at the walls. Every player has his own way of getting into that zone. Me? I’d slip away quietly and head to the toilets. I’d have a pre-match pee and as I was standing there going about my business I’d catch my own reflection in the bathroom tiles. “What are you f****** looking at?”
Pain game
Ferguson insists he just had to feel an added element to really put him in the right place for derby day. He added: “Look, I know this sounds crazy. It probably is. But I’d jab my fist into those tiles as if I was ready for a fight with the whole toilet wall. It was nothing too bad. I wasn’t trying to smash the place up or anything like that.
“I just needed to feel a bit of pain to sharpen up my senses. To get me focused on what I was about to walk into. Sometimes, I’d ask the toilet door for a square go too before sticking my head on it. Again, I was looking for that little edge just to get me fully pumped up for what lay ahead.
“Then I’d give myself a dig in the ribs and bite down on the inside of my bottom lip until it started to bleed just a little bit. I wasn’t taking chunks out of myself or anything like that. I just needed to give myself that extra jolt.
To really feel that big-game buzz. And when I was done I’d walk back into the dressing room, on a slippery linoleum floor, and do five massive jumps, bringing my knees banging into my chest.
“Looking back I realise how easy it would have been for my studs to slip from under me. I could have broken an ankle before I’d even got out the door. But, at the time, it felt as if I had no control.
My blood was pumping and I was slipping into another world, talking to myself on my way up the tunnel, telling myself to win the first tackle or the first header. Urging myself to lay down a marker and get on top of the match early.
“That’s what happens when you’re slap, bang in the middle of the Old Firm madness. And I wish I had been able to enjoy it more than I did. It’s only now, on reflection, you really realise just how privileged you were to be taking part in a game which makes the world stop to watch.”
