EVERTON and Scotland footballer Duncan Ferguson was released from Glasgow's Barlinnie Prison yesterday after serving exactly half of a three-month prison sentence.
The former Rangers striker was one of 35 prisoners released before dawn from the Victorian-built jail but was the only one to be picked up by a chauffeur-driven limousine.
The hired burgundy Daimler, sent up to collect him by his club, is understood to have ferried the 23-year-old footballer straight back to Merseyside, where he remained in hiding last night.
Everton manager Joe Royle refused to comment on the player's whereabouts at an informal players' lunch at Goodison Park yesterday. He would only say: ``We are talking football today. Nothing about Duncan at the moment.''
The club is still discussing whether to lodge a petition for a judicial review of Ferguson's 12-match suspension by the Scottish Football Association, arguing that he is being forced to serve his punishment twice over. That move would effectively suspend his ban until the review is completed and would free him to play.
It had been suggested that the player would put in an appearance before Everton's home match against Sheffield Wednesday at Goodison today. However, a club spokeswoman said yesterday he would not attend the match and that he would resume training on Monday.
A media posse had pursued Ferguson's limousine as far as the M6 motorway after it left Barlinnie yesterday but lost contact with the vehicle near Penrith, Cumbria.
The Daimler had swept out of the prison at 6.35am, whisking Ferguson past 30 journalists and four diehard Everton supporters who had earlier driven north from Liverpool to see him being released.
The limousine, which had tinted windows and black curtains to thwart photographers, had been parked inside the prison overnight with the driver returning to Barlinnie early yesterday to pick up the player.
Scottish Prison Service spokesman John Gerrie defended Ferguson's release procedure as a ``perfectly normal arrangement'' for any high-profile or celebrity prisoner.
The four Everton supporters set out on the 200-mile trip north at 2am yesterday.
Ferguson made football history by becoming the first professional footballer to be jailed for an on-the-field assault on a fellow player. He was sent to Barlinnie on October 11 when three appeal judges ruled the three-month sentence he received for headbutting John McStay was not excessive.
WILLIAM TINNING
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