Ex-Dundee United star Duncan Ferguson has told of how he battered a burglar who broke into his Merseyside home.
Ferguson, who played for Everton when the attempted burglary took place in January 2001, was lying on his living room sofa when the two thieves entered his home just before 1am.
After hearing the men enter his home, he went to confront the intruders while his wife and three-month-old baby were in bed.
The incident took place just hours after the striker, nicknamed ‘Big Dunc’ by fans, returned home from an FA Cup tie against Watford.
Ferguson ‘really followed in’ during topless attack on burglar
Speaking on the BBC podcast Tony Bellew Is Angry, the Forest Green Rovers manager said: “I’m lying on the couch and I heard something around about 12.45pm and I never reacted.
“I was watching the telly and my missus comes down and says ‘come to bed, it’s getting late now Dunc, it’s 1am.’
“I said ‘I’ll be up in five minutes’ and then I heard it again.
“So I’ve just put my trainers on, they were right there. I’ve no top on.
“I was ripped back then, I could take my top off.
“I got up and I could see the two shadows coming through my conservatory.
“Basically that was it. I got a grip of one of them… and that’s when I got angry.
“I got angry and I really unloaded on the fella. I really followed in like, you know what I mean? To the state where I actually thought I’d killed him.”
Ferguson, now 51, then tried to resuscitate the man, still believing that he had killed him.
Burglar spent three days in hospital before being jailed
Officers were soon called to the home and no action was taken against the football hero after police deemed his actions “reasonable”.
The burglars, identified later as Michael Pratt and Barry Dawson, were jailed for 15 months.
Dawson spent three days recovering in hospital after Ferguson’s attack.
The Scot signed for United as a boy, breaking into the first team at just 18.
Between 1990 and 1993 he made 88 appearances and scored 36 goals before setting a then British record transfer fee with his £4 million move to Rangers.
Ferguson now says his anger in the burglary incident came from a feeling of disrespect.
He said: “I was angry then because I felt that… what are they doing to me? Why are they doing this to me?
“I felt as if I was one of the lads and I had like a pass.
“That’s what I felt, I was untouchable really, in my mind. Of course, I wasn’t.”
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