Doncaster Rovers: One year in the job - Darren Ferguson reveals relegation regrets

Darren Ferguson has spoken candidly about Doncaster Rovers' slide out of League One - and the regrets he still has about it.
Darren FergusonDarren Ferguson
Darren Ferguson

The Scot was appointed Rovers boss a year to the day on Sunday.

His arrival initially brought an upturn in form but a run of 17 games without a win following the turn of the year condemned Doncaster to a third relegation in five seasons.

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In an in-depth interview with The Star and our sister paper the Doncaster Free Press to mark his one-year anniversary at the helm, Ferguson admits he looks back at a disastrous three-month period wishing he had not been as “stubborn” in the way he wanted his team to play.

“Out of the 12 months I’ve been here, the three months is the period that got us relegated and the three months is the only period that has been really bad,” said Ferguson.

“It was a disaster.

“I don’t think anyone could see it coming and when we got into it, we found it very difficult to get out of.

“I’ve definitely learned from things like that. During that period I found out a lot about people and it was in that period where I made all my decisions in terms of what I wanted to do going forward.”

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He continued: “The aim was to stay in the league and unfortunately we didn’t.

“The mistake I made was I should have changed it earlier.

“I concentrated on how I wanted to play rather than thinking it could wait for another day.

“I was a bit stubborn because I still felt we could still play the way I wanted to and get results.

“I didn’t realise how quickly the confidence had gone.

“Games like the one at Scunthorpe, we tried to play a certain way and just couldn’t. We didn’t have the confidence.

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“I should have said let’s forget it and just concentrate on winning the game.”

n To listen to the full interview look out for the audio on our Doncaster Rovers Facebook page: www.facebook.com/FreePressDRFC.