Barry Ferguson (born 2 February 1978) is a Scottish football coach, former player and pundit who was most recently the manager of Alloa Athletic. Ferguson spent most of his playing career at Rangers, in two spells either side of a £7.5 million transfer to English club Blackburn Rovers. He totalled 431 games and 60 goals for Rangers, whom he captained between 2000 and 2003 and again between 2005 and 2009. Ferguson won the Scottish Premier League, Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup five times apiece for Rangers, including a treble in 2003, which earned him the honour of SFWA Footballer of the Year. He also helped Rangers to reach the 2008 UEFA Cup Final. Ferguson made 45 appearances for the Scotland national team, starting from 1998. In 2009, following behavioural incidents while on national duty, he was stripped of the captaincy of Rangers and told he would no longer be considered for international selection. Later in his career, he returned to England with Birmingham City, Blackpool and Fleetwood Town. Towards the end of his playing spell with Blackpool, he served as caretaker manager of the club. Ferguson was appointed player-manager of Clyde in June 2014; he resigned from this position in February 2017. He became manager of Kelty Hearts in October 2018, and he left them in May 2021 after guiding them to promotion to the SPFL for the first time. Ferguson then became manager of Alloa Athletic soon after, but left the club on 14 February after a run of one win in eleven games. Early life Born in Hamilton into a Rangers-supporting family, Ferguson's older brother, Derek, had played for the club in the same position in the 1980s, with the younger sibling often being invited behind the scenes at Ibrox Stadium as a child. Around the age of 8 he began playing for Mill United in Hamilton. In his early teens, although highly rated, he suffered rejection by the Scotland Schoolboys, at trials in Largs, due to his stature. He made it into the last thirty or so candidates, however. "When I got out of the car, I went up and lay on my bed and thought to myself, 'You know what? I'm going to go and show them.'" "The same thing happened at Rangers. There was a father and son, and they were both from Ayrshire, and they were taking us at Rangers for the under-15s.