Duncan Ferguson headbutted Raith Rovers’ player, John McStay, on the pitch at Ibrox in April 1994 in one of Scottish football’s most controversial moments.

Incredibly, referee Kenny Clark missed the incident, but the authorities didn’t overlook it, and a year and a half later, the striker was sentenced to three months in prison owing to a breach of probation because of other assault convictions on his record.

Speaking exclusively to FourFourTwo over thirty years later, Ferguson is adamant he didn’t deserve to go to prison.

“I think it was harsh, what happened,” he explains calmly. “So, regret? Yeah, I wish it hadn’t happened. There was slight contact – it wasn’t a full-blooded headbutt – and he went down, but I didn’t expect what came next.

“It was a big moment for me in my Rangers career and in Scotland, because it’s one of the reasons why I moved to the south.

“Walter Smith, God bless him, said I needed to get out of Scotland. In the end, it cost me my Scotland career.”

In addition to the prison sentence, Ferguson was banned for 12 games with the Scottish FA refusing to count games missed while he was in jail.

It left a bitter taste that Ferguson was never able to get over. No Scotsman has scored more Premier League goals than him, yet he never scored for his country at international level, appearing only seven times.