Duncan an unlikely diplomat

I NEVER had Duncan Ferguson down as one of life’s diplomats but in this, as in other things, it appears I may have misjudged him.

In the aftermath of his appointment as manager of League One bottom club Forest Green, Big Dunc conducted a television interview in the presence of the club chairman, eco-industrialist Dale Vince, and a pair of vegan burgers proffered to him on a plate as if they were a pair of new centre forwards.

Ferguson looked at the burgers with the same kind of disdainful mistrust he once reserved for opposing centre-halves but said, gamely, he was looking forward to eating them later and going vegan full time. The rest of his first job as a manager can only get easier.