I’m one of football’s hard men but am delighted manager’s job offer got me out of dentist

Duncan Ferguson says he was moments away from a painful root canal operation when he was offered the role of Inverness manager.

The 51-year-old was announced as the new manager of Inverness Caledonian Thistle earlier this week with the team currently bottom of the Scottish Championship.

Speaking to Alan Brazil and Ally McCoist on talkSPORT Breakfast, Ferguson revealed how he found out about his new job offer in the strangest of places.

Asked where he was when he got the call, he said: “I was actually heading into the dentist’s chair – actually, I’m talking about the real dentist.

“And I was actually heading in for a root canal and I got a phone call and he actually saved me from the chair.

“I was actually just going to eventually sit down and get some treatment on my tooth.

“So he phoned me, he asked me: ‘Would be interested to come up and chat to us?’

“I said: ‘Absolutely, of course I will – I’m out of a job!’

“So that’s how quickly it happened – I got out the dentist’s chair as quick as I could, got in the car and drove off.”

And Brazil couldn’t resist quipping in reply: “Get out of a root canal for the Caledonian canal!”

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Ferguson started his career at Dundee United, where he made 77 appearances, before moving to Rangers in 1993 for what was then a British record fee of £4million.

During Ferguson’s 16-year playing career, he went on to make over 200 appearances for Everton and 30 appearances for Newcastle.

He also made seven appearances for Scotland before ruling himself out of international duty in 1997 following a dispute with the Scottish Football Association.

With 84 goals, Ferguson still holds the record for the most goals scored by any Scottish player in the Premier League.

After a brief stint at Everton as caretaker manager, Ferguson took his first managerial position at Forest Green Rovers earlier this year.

But after a disastrous spell which saw him win just one out of 18 games, he left the role.

The 51-year-old will now make his return to Scottish football as he takes the reins in Inverness.

But Ferguson has a huge task ahead of him – Inverness are at the foot of Scottish football’s second tier having picked up just one point from their first six games but Ferguson believes that he can turn their season around.

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He said: “They’ve had a bad run of results but they’re not far away and that was really one of the reasons as well why I took the job.”

Ferguson added: “We are close. We’ve got a good squad, they are good players, they’re here for a reason but we’ve got to make sure we try and turn this form as quick as we can.”