Everton Legend Duncan Ferguson Heads to Glentoran After Five-Week Search for Manager

• Duncan Ferguson is expected to be confirmed as Glentoran manager on Monday, five weeks after the club parted company with Declan Devine.
• The Glens first chased Cliftonville’s Jim Magilton, who made clear he would stay at Solitude, before turning to the Everton great.
• Ferguson, 54, scored 72 goals in 273 Everton appearances, but his spells in charge at Forest Green Rovers and Inverness Caledonian Thistle were hardly a success.

The Glens Went Looking for a Safe Pair of Hands and Found a Cult Hero

Duncan Ferguson is about to become the most recognisable face in the Irish Premiership. According to BBC Sport Northern Ireland, his appointment at the Oval is expected to be confirmed on Monday, ending a five-week search that took Glentoran from one obvious candidate to another and then to a name nobody had on their list.

Glentoran parted company with Declan Devine on 14 September. The simple solution looked like a reunion with Tiernan Lynch, Devine’s former assistant. Lynch had won the Irish Premiership twice with Larne, had just left Derry City in August and went in as favourite for the job.

Instead the Glens made Jim Magilton their priority and tried to prise the former Northern Ireland and Ipswich Town midfielder out of his contract at Cliftonville. Magilton made it clear he intended to stay at Solitude. Nobody would have predicted what came next. BBC Sport’s Jonathan Bradley wrote that a move for Ferguson was not “on anyone’s bingo card”.

Star Power in the Dugout

Ferguson played 273 times for Everton and scored 72 goals. He won the FA Cup with the club in 1995 and also had spells with Rangers and Newcastle United. He became a cult figure across two playing stints at Goodison Park for his goals and his aggression: no player has been shown more than his eight Premier League red cards. At 54, the seven-times capped Scotland striker instantly becomes the best-known face in the league.

BBC Sport compared the appeal to the boost the League of Ireland received when former Chelsea winger Damian Duff took charge of Shelbourne. Supporters were already having fun with the news on Saturday, with false reports of Ferguson being spotted everywhere from Glentoran’s 1-0 win over Limavady to a chip shop on the Newtownards Road.

His coaching record is a mixed one. Ferguson was an assistant to Carlo Ancelotti, Rafa Benitez and Ronald Koeman, and he worked under seven different permanent bosses at Everton and took charge twice on an interim basis. After he left Merseyside following Frank Lampard’s departure in 2022, his jobs at Forest Green Rovers and Inverness Caledonian Thistle were hardly considered a success, the BBC said, though both came in testing circumstances. He also has no experience of the Irish League. The BBC called the appointment a gamble.

A Title Drought That Dates Back to 2009

Glentoran last won the league in 2009. Their most recent of 23 Gibson Cups came under the late Alan McDonald, a decade before owner Ali Shams Pour arrived. Mick McDermott won the Irish Cup in 2020 but still faced supporter protests. Rodney McAree left for personal reasons after just under five months. Warren Feeney, unpopular from the start for his past with rivals Linfield, could not win over the fans either. Devine then lifted the County Antrim Shield in January 2025, but back-to-back losses in BetMcLean Cup finals stalled the momentum.

Devine came close to the title last season. A win over Larne in the penultimate game would have put Glentoran top going into the final day. They drew 0-0, then lost 6-2 at Coleraine and finished third. Ferguson will also know that one half of the league’s so-called Big Two has not finished in the top two for 17 years.

He inherits a squad built by and for Devine, and the BBC described it as imbalanced after heavy spending across the past five transfer windows. The side leaned on Jordan Stewart for creativity, which led to Conor McMenamin returning in September just two months after he signed for Coleraine. Joe Thomson went the other way, taking midfield drive out of the team, and Cammy Palmer went home to Scotland. Top scorer Pat Hoban missed the early months of this season, and the cover, Jordan Jenkins, plays in a completely different way.

Four wins and a draw from the last five league games under interim boss Paddy McCourt show there is something to work with, and most clubs in the league would happily swap squads with the Oval. They would not swap expectations. Nor would they want the same attention that follows Ferguson through the door.

WRITTEN BY

Jarrod

Jarrod Partridge is the Founder of Futbol Chronicle and an accredited journalist with over 30 years of experience following international football. A member of the AIPS International Sports Press Association, Jarrod has covered matches at stadiums around the world, bringing first-hand insight to every match report, player profile, and tactical analysis he writes.

More articles by Jarrod →