Duncan Ferguson: ‘David Moyes gesture was his way of telling me I was done at Everton’

‘Moyes should still have told me the week before so that I could prepare myself properly to say goodbye to the fans. ‘Look, it’s your last game, get your kids in’

I swallowed my pride and called David Moyes. I had so much respect for him. Still do. “I need to come and see you, gaffer. I want to go through a few things with you.”

“Dunc, I’ve been waiting for this phone call for five years,” he said. There had been two fall-outs between us. The first was when he told me that he wanted me out in 2003. The second was around a day I’ll never forget: May 7, 2006 – West Brom at Goodison.

I knew when Moyesy gave me the captaincy that day, that was it. The end. I never got told I was getting released before the game. It dawned on me on matchday.

“You’re the captain, and there’s your captain’s armband,” Moyes (with Ferguson, right) said to me when I walked in the changing room. “I don’t want the captain’s ­armband.”

“No, Dunc, I think you should take it.” I knew then. That was Moyes’s way of telling me ‘this is your last game’. Look, I’m not really blaming David. I expected that to happen. As a footballer, it rarely ends in the way you want it to.

Moyes should still have told me the week before so that I could prepare myself properly to say goodbye to the fans. ‘Look, it’s your last game, get your kids in.’

Fortunately I’d got wind just in time that this was the end so I’d managed to get my kids to ­Goodison and got them on the pitch. I wanted them to see me go out in style. In front of my second family, the Everton fans.

The Everton and West Brom players gave me a guard of ­honour. During the lap of honour I struggled with all the emotions – pride, heartache, grieving in a way that my Everton career, my whole football career, was over. I celebrated afterwards with fans in a local pub.

What else could I do? I got called into the manager’s office the following day. I was at Bellefield in a big queue with youth players waiting to be ­released.

I couldn’t believe it. That’s why I had the fall-out. I knew the day before that my time was up, but this was the club making it official, and me hanging around with kids crying their eyes out.

In fairness to David, he didn’t know I was in the queue. I went into his office. I wouldn’t shake his hand. I pushed his hand away. “Well, Dunc, this is the end,” Moyes said.

“You go and f*** yourself,” I ­replied. The release meeting was only 10 seconds. The door was still swinging on my way out.

But years later – when I needed to move the family back home from Mallorca because I missed my Everton family – I needed to patch things up with Moyesy, a man I have so much respect for. So I went to the Finch Farm training ground, where the team had moved from Bellefield, and put my hand out. We shook hands. It meant a lot.

“Sit down, Dunc, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been meaning to talk to you for the last five years. I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Look, I’m sorry what ­happened the last time we met. I was out of order when I stormed off and told you to **** off. I’m sorry. I was steamed up.”

“I didn’t know you were standing in the corridor for that long,” Moyesy told me. “I didn’t know you were in line with the kids.”

“Let’s forget about it,” I said. So that was the time I kissed and made up with Moyesy. It was also when he said, “Dunc, I’ve got a job for you. I want you to become an ­ambassador for Everton.”

Moyesy knew I could talk and he knew I was good with kids as he’d seen me in action at Alder Hey. “Brilliant, thanks very much, I’m made up,” I said, “but, to be honest, I want to be a coach.”

Big Dunc: The Upfront Autobiography by Duncan Ferguson, with Henry Winter, is published on May 8 by Century.