Club Rangers (first spell) Ferguson was promoted to the first-team squad for the
1996–97 season. He made his debut on the last day of that season against
Hearts on 10 May 1997. The Dutchman soon secured Ferguson on a long-term contract as he became an important member of the squad. He scored his first career goal in a
League Cup match against
Alloa Athletic on 18 August 1998, and played against his brother on three occasions during that season when Rangers faced
Dunfermline Athletic, with a 20-year-old Ferguson scoring his first league goal in the match at
East End Park. His brother, then 31 years old, made his last appearance at Ibrox in the reverse fixture. Injury prevented him from being involved in the
1998–99 season run-in as the club achieved the
treble; Ferguson watched the
1999 Scottish Cup final from the stands as Rangers won by a single goal, scored by
Rod Wallace three minutes into the second half. Ferguson was so influential the following season that he was given an extended six-year deal at Rangers in October 1999. He was named the
Scottish Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year for
1999–2000, a season in which Rangers retained the Premier League and Scottish Cup, beating
Aberdeen in
the final. Ferguson received minor facial injuries after engaging in a drunken hotel brawl following a 6–2 defeat to
Celtic in August 2000. After being sent off in the match, he had made obscene gestures to the crowd and then went drinking in
Bothwell in his club tracksuit. When the club crashed out of the
UEFA Champions League group stage at the hands of
AS Monaco, largely because of a mistake by captain
Lorenzo Amoruso, the Italian was stripped of the captaincy and it instead went to the 22-year-old Ferguson. An incident in which two bags of ice were thrown at the Celtic dug-out during a 2–0 defeat at Ibrox in September 2001 was attributed to Ferguson, who was criticised for his petulance and immaturity. Celtic manager
Martin O'Neill played down the incident, saying he thought the ice had been thrown by his club's doctor. The young Ferguson went on to successfully guide his team to a
League Cup and
Scottish Cup later that season under manager
Alex McLeish, who had replaced Advocaat in December 2001. In the latter final, another
Old Firm clash, Ferguson tied the score at 2–2 with a free kick (
Peter Lovenkrands scored the winning goal). During their second season together,
2002–03, Ferguson captained the side to a domestic treble. After scoring 18 goals from midfield, he also won
Scottish Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year and
Scottish PFA Players' Player of the Year.
Blackburn Rovers On 29 August 2003, Ferguson joined
Premier League club
Blackburn Rovers for a fee of £7.5 million. With
Everton also chasing Ferguson, Rangers had initially denied that he was leaving. He made his Blackburn debut in a Premier League match against
Liverpool on 19 September at
Ewood Park, and scored his first goal against the same team, also at Ewood Park, during a
League Cup match on 29 October.
Graeme Souness made Ferguson captain of Blackburn in July 2004 and he seemed to be adapting well to Premiership football, despite the team still struggling and a managerial change, which saw
Mark Hughes replacing Souness. However, after 16 months at the club, including a lengthy period out through injury after fracturing his kneecap in a Premiership match against
Newcastle United, during the January 2005 transfer window, Ferguson submitted a written transfer request, admitting that the draw of playing in the Premiership and a Lancashire derby could not compare with an
Old Firm match, nor could the team's desire to win be matched.
Rangers (second spell) After much discussion between the clubs, a fee of £4.5 million was agreed and Ferguson rejoined Rangers just before the close of the transfer window. Ferguson later said that the fee Rangers paid was actually £100,000 plus the fees Blackburn owed from the original transfer. Ferguson's second debut for Rangers came in a
League Cup semi-final victory over
Dundee United. He was a 69th-minute substitute for
Alex Rae during the 7–1 win. His first goal after his return was the opening goal in a 1–1 draw against
Inverness CT on 5 March 2005. Ferguson played in the
2005 Scottish League Cup final ) playing for Rangers against
Barcelona in a
UEFA Champions League match in 2007 At the start of the
2005–06 season, manager
Alex McLeish re-appointed Ferguson as club captain. McLeish had not wanted to remove the captaincy mid-season from
Fernando Ricksen. Ferguson played the latter part of the season carrying an ankle injury as Rangers ended up in a third-place finish in the Premier League. At the end of the season, Ferguson revealed that he had snapped ligaments and confessed that he should have undergone the surgery sooner. After an incident in the dressing room at
Caledonian Stadium,
Inverness, on 27 December 2006, it was announced on
BBC Radio Scotland's New Year's Day broadcast of
Sportsound that Ferguson had been stripped of the Rangers captaincy after a meeting with then manager
Paul Le Guen. He was also dropped from the squad for the next match. Later Le Guen claimed Ferguson was undermining him. "I'll go on record as saying I never had one bust-up with him, never had one argument with him. I don't know where all this comes from," explained Ferguson eleven years later. Following the resignation of Le Guen as manager on 4 January, Ferguson was re-instated to the Rangers side by caretaker manager
Ian Durrant The
2007–08 season began with Ferguson scoring twice in the first
SPL match against
Inverness. His scoring form continued and he netted the second in a 3–0 win over rivals Celtic, as well as in the
UEFA Champions League against
VfB Stuttgart. The Old Firm goal was Ferguson's first against Celtic since the 2002 Scottish Cup Final. In January 2008, he scored a controversial goal in Rangers'
2007–08 Scottish League Cup semi-final win against
Hearts. He later admitted to handling the ball in the buildup to the goal but that the infringement was unintentional. Rangers went on to win both the
League Cup final and the
Scottish Cup final. On 14 May 2008, Ferguson made his 400th appearance for Rangers in the
UEFA Cup Final against
Zenit Saint Petersburg at the
City of Manchester Stadium; he captained the side to a 2–0 defeat. The summer of 2008 saw Ferguson undergo an operation on a fresh injury problem that would see him ruled out until early November; He returned to the first team on 1 November in a 5–0 league win over Inverness at Ibrox. In April 2009, after an extended hotel drinking session with Rangers teammate
Allan McGregor after Scotland's defeat to
the Netherlands, followed by both players making inappropriate gestures while on the bench during the next match against
Iceland, Ferguson was stripped of the captain's armband for both club and country. (his last match for the club, having not started since the Scotland incident). Rangers also won the
SPL title but missed out on another treble with a defeat in the
2009 Scottish League Cup Final. Ferguson was inducted into the
Rangers F.C. Hall of Fame in 2004 at the age of 26. which made him the record European appearance holder at the club. Ferguson overtook
David Narey's record for the number of European appearances made whilst playing for a Scottish club by starting in a
UEFA Cup match against
Werder Bremen. He broke
Kenny Dalglish's record for the number of competitive European appearances by a Scottish footballer when he played in his 80th match in Europe, against
Sporting CP.
Birmingham City On 17 July 2009, Ferguson completed a move to English
Premier League newcomers
Birmingham City on a three-year contract for an undisclosed fee, reported as "in the region of £1.2m". Joining up with boss Alex McLeish once again, He made his debut in the opening game of the season, against
Manchester United on 15 August 2009, and his first goal for the club came as the only goal of the
FA Cup third round replay against
Nottingham Forest in January 2010. Ferguson won the Birmingham City players' Player of the Year award for 2009–10. Ferguson helped Birmingham beat Arsenal in the
2011 League Cup Final at Wembley, despite playing the last hour of the game with a broken rib. During both of his two seasons with Birmingham, Ferguson made over two thousand passes without recording an assist. In season 2009–10 Ferguson had the highest number of completed passes of any player in the Barclays Premier League, according to Opta statistics.
Blackpool before the
2012 Football League Championship play-off final With Birmingham needing to reduce their wage bill following their relegation from the Premier League, Ferguson joined Championship club
Blackpool on 22 July 2011 for an undisclosed fee, reported to be around £750,000. This enabled him to move closer to his family in Scotland, and he signed a two-year deal, with the option of staying on for a further year. He was given the
captain's armband (taking over from
Charlie Adam, who had departed for
Liverpool) for the club's opening League fixture at
Hull City on 5 August. Ferguson scored his first goal for
the Seasiders in a 2–0 victory over
Ipswich Town at
Bloomfield Road on 10 September. It was his first goal in English league football for seven years. In late October 2012, after a falling out with chairman Karl Oyston, Ferguson was made to train with the Blackpool youth team. Early the following month, he received a call from
Micky Mellon, manager of nearby
Fleetwood Town. Although he doubted Ferguson would want to play in
League Two, Mellon put forward the offer of coming on loan. Ferguson accepted, the only such move of his career, and spent three months at
Highbury Avenue. Ferguson was reinstated to the side by
Paul Ince on 20 February in his first game in charge, a 2–0 defeat at
Leeds United. He had been named as a substitute for the previous couple of games, under the caretaker-managership of
Steve Thompson. He was given the captain's armband, in the absence of
Alex Baptiste, for the home victory over Derby County on 26 April. In October 2013, Ferguson had a sixth and final operation on his ankle, "I didn't want to take it, but nobody else would take the job," Ferguson explained in 2020. "And it was a chance to keep the club up." He initially stated that he would not be playing while in the managerial role, but on 12 April, at Leeds, he named himself in the starting line-up in an attempt to stave off the threat of relegation. "
Bob [Malcolm] says to me, 'You'll need to come back in.' I said, 'Bob, I've not trained for six weeks.' He said, 'You'll need to come back and play; we're struggling.'" Although Blackpool won only three of their twenty games with Ferguson in charge, they avoided relegation by two points. Ferguson left Blackpool at the end of the 2013–14 season.
International Ferguson made twelve appearances for
Scotland's under-21 team. He made his full international debut at the age of 20 against
Lithuania on 5 September 1998. However, an injury-plagued season prevented him from picking up more caps. Indeed, Ferguson did not return to the Scotland set up until a year later, starting in a 2–1 win against
Bosnia-Herzegovina on 4 September 1999. He was appointed captain of the national side in 2004 by then-manager
Berti Vogts, following the retirement of
Paul Lambert. Ferguson captained Scotland a total of 28 times. He led the side to a single-goal victory over former World Champions
France 1–0 at the
Parc des Princes in Paris on 12 September 2007. This completed a double-header of single-goal victories against the French during the
UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying campaign. Ferguson received criticism for being a disruptive influence on the team despite captaining his country for years. On 3 April 2009, he was banned from ever representing Scotland again after serious breaches of squad discipline, On 6 July 2010, Scotland coach
Craig Levein confirmed that Ferguson will not play for Scotland again. Levein had hoped he would return, but Ferguson informed him that he wanted to focus on club football instead. ==Coaching career==