Former Rangers and Scotland captain Barry Ferguson has admitted that his actions during the ‘Boozegate’ scandal that ended his international career were a “disgrace” and “embarrassing”.

The infamous drinking session at Cameron House in April 2009, after the Scotland squad returned from a World Cup qualifying defeat in Holland in the early hours of the morning, led to Ferguson and teammate Allan McGregor being left out of the match against Iceland the following Wednesday by then national coach George Burley.

The two players then exacerbated their misdemeanours by being pictured making offensive gestures to photographers as they sat among the Scotland substitutes on the night, leading Rangers manager Walter Smith to fine and suspend both players for a fortnight, with Ferguson being stripped of the captaincy and eventually being sold to Birmingham City that summer.

Ferguson, now a manager himself with Clyde, still takes umbrage at the method by which he claims to have been informed of the end of his Scotland career – by fax - although his version of events has been disputed by the SFA’s chief executive at the time, Gordon Smith.

He accepts however that the punishments that were meted out to him from both the SFA and from Rangers were fully justified.

“Listen, I took the consequences, and you know what? They were right,” Ferguson told the BBC.

“The way they done it, wasn’t right, through a fax. I would rather somebody phoned me up and told me, but I kind of knew it was happening anyway. To be told through a fax isn’t great. I wasn’t looking for any special treatment because I was the captain or whatever, but I would rather just get a phone-call to say ‘listen, you are an absolute idiot, you’re a disgrace, and you should never play with your country again’.

“Do you know what? I’ll take that, because I was a disgrace. That was embarrassing what I done. It was embarrassing because it ended my career.

“That’s where I’m angry at myself, because I should be thinking about that. To go and do what I done and not think about the consequences it would have on my family, and even my teammates at Scotland, it was just a circus.”

Ferguson has previously stated that the biggest regret of his career was not apologising to Rangers manager Smith upon his arrival back at Murray Park for training for the first time following his errant behaviour.

Smith, who himself was the Scotland manager for a largely successful two-year spell before Burley took charge, was furious with the conduct of his player, both for showing a lack of respect for his country and for the embarrassment he had subsequently caused around the world for Rangers.

After failing to front up to Smith, Ferguson had no choice but to accept the unpalatable truth that his actions had cost him his Ibrox career.

Ferguson said: “That’s just not shown in Scotland, that’s shown all over Britain, and even Walter [Smith] said to me ‘this is all over the world, this is even in America. You’re embarrassing the club.’ And I did embarrass the club.

“I took the consequences which were 100% spot on. I took the fine, took the suspension, and basically it took my Rangers career away.”

Ferguson concedes that the whole ‘Boozegate’ episode might even have caused him to be frozen out of professional football, and he admits that there came a time when he wondered if anyone would take a chance on him again.

He looked to England for a chance of redemption, and a possible reunion with a former ally and champion of his talents in a bid to reinvent himself as a reformed character.

Even Alex McLeish though, the manager who he captained Rangers to a treble under in the 2002/03 season and who eventually ended his Ibrox exile by signing him for Birmingham City in the summer of 2009, had doubts over whether Ferguson could still cut it at the top level.

He made those fears plain to Ferguson in a telephone conversation while the player was on holiday, and while he was surprised by the concerns McLeish had at the time, with the benefits of time, hindsight and maturity, he can see where his former boss was coming from.

“I was at a point where ‘is someone going to take a chance on me?’”, Ferguson added.

“I was kind of going and re-inventing myself back down south, and do you know what? [Alex] wasn’t even sure about taking me.

“I remember speaking to Alex when I was on holiday, and he was asking ‘are you really fit enough?’ And I was somebody who was his captain.

“Thinking about that conversation now, I totally understand why he would [have doubts over me] after what I done.”