THE passage of time may have dimmed the memory but Iain Ferguson has seen the pictures.

There he is, all alone in the Dundee United penalty area, rising highest to guide the ball past Alan Main between the posts, a head of blond-tipped hair flouncing as he flicks it past the stranded goalkeeper.

It is the first recollection that comes to mind when Ferguson is asked to recount the 1991 Scottish Cup final win over United, the last time Motherwell lifted a major trophy following a dramatic 4-3 extra-time victory. It was the crowning moment for the striker in a career that also brought a goal in a League Cup triumph while at Rangers and a Uefa Cup final appearance when at Dundee United.

“I always enjoyed the big occasions,” says Ferguson, who also played for Dundee and Hearts. “I had a reasonably good record when I got to Hampden and scored in a few big games. We went in 1-0 at half-time. It was one of my highest jumps. I’ve seen photographs since and wonder how I managed to get so far off the ground. It was just the will to get on the end of it. I was involved in the build-up. Phil O’Donnell played it in to me and I played it out to Jim Griffin. I continued my run into the box and he put in a great ball. As soon as it left my head I was running away, even before the ball went into the net.

“It was a great experience. Motherwell were my local club and I joined them in the latter stages of my career. Truth be told, I didn’t expect to win a major trophy with a wee club but we had some great players in Davie Cooper, Bobby Russell, Craig Paterson – we had all played with Rangers and had a bit of experience – and then you had boys like Phil O’Donnell and Ian Angus, who won the Cup-Winners’ Cup with Aberdeen, young Jim Griffin, Chris McCart, and young Tommy Boyd was just starting out on his career as well. We had a good mix of youth and experience and that stood us in good stead.”

In the quarter-finals of this year’s Scottish Cup at Fir Park today, weather permitting, Motherwell will aim to take a step closer to emulating Ferguson and his fellow heroes from 1991. They do so with a number of factors weighted against them. Hearts are their opponents and since the Tynecastle side returned to the top flight in 2015, Motherwell have managed just two wins against them, one of which came during Ian Cathro’s risible spell as Hearts head coach. They travel to Fir Park this afternoon after just two defeats in 18 matches under Craig Levein, and with some qualities that Ferguson recognises from the time he spent at the two clubs in the late 1980s and early 90s.

“Craig has done a fantastic job. I went to half-a-dozen Hearts games last year. I saw Robbie Neilson’s last game in charge when they beat Rangers. I saw them under Ian Cathro, who was a modern-day manager with PowerPoint presentations but who couldn’t get his point across. I think Craig has come in and totally changed it. He’s got his own ideas and he has nurtured some of these young players and put them in and they are playing week in, week out. He’s steadied the ship, which was always likely since he was a great defensive player. His teams are always hard to beat. He also has [Kyle] Lafferty and [Steven] Naismith, they’ve helped with the experience and are starting to score goals.

“Craig has a footballing sense of humour. He is very experienced, he has been about and he’s managed a few clubs as well as managing his country. He knows how to use that experience to wind people up and plant a few well-chosen comments to the media. He knows exactly what he’s doing and fair play to him.”

There is precedent, too, this season. Stephen Robinson’s side have already lost the League Cup final to Celtic in November and the distraction, coupled with the January departure of Louis Moult to Preston North End, threatened to derail the Fir Park side’s season. Only recently has their league form started to pick up again and one could be forgiven for thinking that another extended run in a cup competition might prove their undoing once more. However,

Ferguson disagrees, hoping that an upset somewhere along the line will confirm his belief that Scottish

football has witnessed an upturn over the course of this campaign.

“I saw Motherwell at the start of the season and they impressed,” he said. “They were on a really good run of form and fair play to the manager. He has put his stamp on the team. They were running over the top of opponents. I think losing Louis Moult was massive. If someone is regularly scoring 20 goals a season for Motherwell, it’s a big hole to fill.

I admire the job Stephen Robinson has done.

“A cup run allows you to take your mind off the league and it’s a number of years since they’ve won the cup – as we know – but it gives them an opportunity to get us [the players who won the Scottish Cup in 1991] out,” he says. “It’s probably time for someone else to step up and take that mantle. It was a great experience for people like myself, a local boy.

“I think it is important that someone else wins the cup. It is important that someone gives Celtic some competition. It would be good for Scottish football for someone other than Celtic to win one of the trophies but they are still a quality side. We had to beat a good Celtic team in the semi-final. They have lost a couple of games you wouldn’t have expected them to lose so who knows?”

At face value, this quarter-final resembled a gathering of the bridesmaids. A game to determine which team will simply provide the opposition to lose to Celtic, Rangers or Aberdeen in the last four; Ferguson admits that Brendan Rodgers’ side remain a formidable obstacle despite the cloak of invincibility slipping recently.

“I don’t think anyone should be overly confident of beating Celtic,” he said. “A couple of bad results doesn’t turn them overnight into a bad team. What it does show is that they are beatable. If losing a couple of games is a slump then what does that say about the rest? They’ll still be the team to beat. Everybody has it in their minds that there is a template for how to beat them but they are well capable of dominating.”