Ron Ferguson

Life and career Ferguson was born in Accrington, Lancashire, He began his football career as a youngster with Sheffield Wednesday, In December 1975, he joined Fourth Division club Scunthorpe United on loan; he played three times without scoring. Sheffield Wednesday released Ferguson in the second half of the 1975–76 season, and he signed for Fourth Division Darlington, for whom he scored the only goal of the game against Torquay United on 15 March 1976.

In December 1976, Ferguson scored the only goal of the match to eliminate Wednesday from the 1976–77 FA Cup. The powerful drive, from a distance estimated at anything from , was voted best goal ever seen at Darlington's Feethams ground in a 2003 poll on the occasion of the ground's closure. Two weeks later, he scored in the local derby with Hartlepool in less spectacular fashion, "scrambl[ing] in the equaliser" after an hour of the match. In something over four seasons with Darlington, he made 114 league appearances and scored 18 goals.