Everton fear saviour

It is 4.40 p.m. this afternoon and a colourless game at St James' Park between the current love of Duncan Ferguson's life, Newcastle United, and his old flame, Everton, is petering out into a goalless draw.

And then fate intervenes to test the big man's loyalties. As the referee lifts whistle towards lips to signal full-time, the ball falls directly in front of Ferguson who, likewise, is standing directly in front of an unprotected goal. The striker has the simplest chance to score the goal that, at season's end, may well be recalled as the one that effectively sent Everton down and out of top-flight football for the first time in 48 years.

A quarter of a century ago, another Scottish striker was similarly cast into this cruel predicament. In 1974, the Manchester United legend Denis Law was penning the final chapter of his rich, some would say Fergusonesque career, on the other side of the tracks at Manchester City.

On the season's final day City beat United at Old Trafford to send them down from the old First Division. The coup de grace was delivered by Law, a cheeky backheel into the United net.

Law's reaction said everything that needed to be said about divided loyalties. As his team-mates were swept up in the delight of the moment, he looked like a man who had just run over his daughter's puppy.

Ferguson (27), is not Law by any means, but for all his shortcomings - poor goal return, ill-discipline, a fondness for sulking - Everton certainly have missed him these past five months.

It is generally accepted that had he not performed so majestically for them in the final six weeks of last season, suggesting that the tag "Braveheart" was not totally erroneous, the Merseysiders would have been playing in the Nationwide League this season, ending the second longest tenure at the top after Arsenal's.

The manner of his departure from Goodison to St James' on November 23rd last year would do justice to a P D James novel.

Ferguson insists he was sold against his wishes, that he did not want to leave Everton, that he had no option but to accept the Geordie shilling offered by Ruud Gullit and his paymasters.

Although it would be wrong to question Ferguson's affection for Everton (a tattoo of the club's badge on his arm testifies to that), the simple, undeniable truth is that he did not have to go at all. With more than 31/2 years of a Stg£20,000-a-week contract left to run, he had only to dig in his heels to scupper the £8 million transfer.

He chose not to, preferring to collect a "termination" payment of £1 million and accept Newcastle's offer of £9.5 million over five years.

"The move was forced on me," insisted Ferguson. "I was numb with shock, it sickened me, I couldn't believe it. I thought I would finish my career at Everton; I wanted to finish my career at Everton."

It was a shoddy episode, one which initially brought great discredit upon the then Everton chairman Peter Johnson, followed swiftly by a wave of anger forceful enough to flush him from office.

Although Everton's manager, Walter Smith, had no idea Ferguson had been transferred on the night Newcastle were actually playing at Goodison, he knew the striker would be sold at some point to help reduce the club's overdraft.

The deal had been done four hours before kick-off but, astonishingly, even though they sat side by side watching Everton narrowly defeat Newcastle, Johnson did not inform his manager of his tasty bit of business.

It was not until shortly before 11.0 p.m., when Smith and Ferguson crossed on the stairs, that the player told his by now former manager that he had swapped Merseyside for Tyneside.

It is debatable whether Smith was sorry to see the back of the player he himself had sold to Everton in 1994 while in charge at Rangers. It is true that the player Smith inherited on his move south was much more mature than the wayward lad who had seemingly surrendered self-control in Scotland, but the two were never particularly close.

A rebellious streak which eventually carried Ferguson all the way to a six-week stretch in Glasgow's Barlinnie prison was something which Smith could neither identify with nor excuse.

If Ferguson comes off the bench and nudges his former club closer to relegation today, it will be a painful act born of professional necessity.

It will also break his heart. As one former Everton manager, Howard Kendall, famously remarked, in football there are love affairs - and then there are marriages.