Forest Green Rovers chairman Dale Vince says the appointment of Duncan Ferguson is ‘magical’ and is confident this is the beginning of a great partnership.
The club sacked Ian Burchnall on Monday as they sit bottom of the League One table.
However, it hasn’t taken them long for them to find their next appointment, with Everton legend Ferguson taking the reins.
Speaking exclusively to talkSPORT, Vince revealed how the club came about making such an appointment.
“It all came out of nowhere really,” he said. “We’ve been busy in January recruiting players, probably like five or six of them. The agent of one of them said to us that Duncan Ferguson would be interested in this job if it became available.
“Firstly it wasn’t available at the time but we kept that in our heads, secondly Duncan Ferguson, are you serious? So we reached out yesterday after I had to take the decision and sack our coach Ian Burchnall. He’s not a bad guy at all but he’s had kind of a bad season, bad circumstances let’s say.
“After I spoke to Ian, we reached out to Duncan. He came straight down and we had a great chat, did a deal and then he’s back here today the very next day to talk to the media and get stuck in.”
Ferguson will embark on the first managerial appointment of his career having only been interim boss at Everton on two occasions.
But Vince has high hopes for the Scotsman, adding: “I mean we’re on the same page, we’re both football people. We’ve both got ambition, we’re going to make a great team.
“We’ve had a load of applications since the news broke yesterday that we were changing our coach but we just said, ‘Look, I don’t think we’ll find anything better than this.’ We could go through a process and talk to a lot of other people but actually this looks perfect so we just did it.
“I had the conversation with Ian yesterday morning and then we got onto Duncan, he came down and honestly got on so well. Obviously he’s a bit of a legend at Everton and I knew of him, I’m a fan of what he’s done in football.
“I just couldn’t believe it really in the first place that he was interested in coming and then when he did come down it was just bish bosh, why wouldn’t we want him?”
He added: “The feedback from the staff already is that the players are excited, positive. The fans are as well, everyone around the club today are buzzing.
“It’s the kind of signing of a new head coach that you probably wouldn’t dare dream of but it happened anyway, it’s kind of magical.”
Forest Green gained promotion to League One last season, but are currently four points from safety.
This clearly hasn’t deterred Ferguson, with Vince saying: “He’s a great character, I love his approach to positivity and stuff like that. Honestly we’re going to make the best team, there’s no doubt about it.
“It says something about Duncan as well that his first job is a relegation battle, he’s not afraid of that.”
He added: “It’s fantastic to have him join us, I’m really excited about it.”
Ferguson’s first game in charge will be a trip to Shrewsbury Town on Saturday, a side who are three spots below the play-offs.
His previous club, Everton, are searching for their new manager, with Marcelo Bielsa and Sean Dyche being linked.
