NOBODY ever confirmed to me why the late Ian Russell had the nickname Fergie but then again I was never quite sure what Fergie was.

For a brief spell in the 1980s, this Hamilton pensioner became the most famous football fan in Scotland by being an almighty pain in the bahookey. Especially to the players, directors and players who represented the Accies, which was the team he followed home and away. He’s on YouTube. Worth a watch.

It was said when Fergie passed away a number of years ago at 71 – he always seemed to be about 100 – there were 1000 stories about him and all of them were true.

There was the time he missed his lift back to Hamilton from Forfar and so, against his better judgement, the much-missed John Lambie invited his nemesis to travel home with the team and a few suits.

“Fergie, there will nae swearing, ken, or I’ll put you out on the road,” warned the Accies manager, himself no stranger to a cuss word or 500 when he really got going.

Fergie did really well. He lasted all the way to a chippy in Arbroath when he was thrown off. This was after he had abused Lambie, Lambie’s wife, whichever poor director happened to be there and lastly the players themselves. All done with a barely coherent rant containing more swear words in one sentence than you would get in an entire Quentin Tarantino film.

There was the pie incident in 1991 which saw Fergie unceremoniously exited from the B&Q Cup Final because he threw and hit a policeman with his meaty half-time purchase after Ayr United had the temerity to score a goal. A bit of high jinks. That was all.

He, sort of, got away with all of this, and there are many more tales of bad language, worrying behaviour and calling Lambie a w*****, because he was a genuine eccentric who, let’s be honest, wasn’t really hurting anyone.

Any regular of Douglas Park, as I was in the 1980s, has a Fergie story and are all told with a smile. He was a character, a one-off, who could brighten up a 0-0 away game from East Fife to East Stirling. There were a few of them.

In stark contrast, those who abused current Hamilton manager Martin Canning last week at Perth, to the extent Canning’s father felt the need to leave the game, will not be remembered as fondly. Indeed, any decent Accies fan with half a brain will realise just how idiotic this behaviour was.

Hamilton were knocked out of the Scottish Cup at the weekend. They have been struggling for wins of late in a league in which they have the smallest budget and a fan-base of a couple of thousand at most

Accies have never won the Scottish Cup, although they did make the final in 1911 and 1935.

This is their fifth straight season in the Premiership, Scottish football’s top tier, which is a club record. Over the past decade they have produced James McCarthy, James McArthur, Brian Easton, Ali Crawford, Michael Devlin, Greg Docherty, Eamonn Brophy and Lewis Ferguson.

At the peak of their market value, that’s easily over £30million worth of footballers. Not bad for a club with home gates of 2500 – and a large portion of them are away fans.

Hamilton are out of the cup and struggling for wins not because Canning is bad at his job, rather it’s because this is Hamilton we are talking about. This is what they do. If those abusive fans expect long unbeaten runs and days out at Hampden, I have to say they are following the wrong team.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” was one chant from last Saturday followed with them telling Canning where to go.

I can guess who is involved. There is a section of the Accies support who have never liked Canning and don’t seem to take any joy from going to the games. They do like shouting and moaning.

Canning is not beyond criticism. This hasn’t been a great season for the club but after punching above their weight for so long, there was always the chance of the team eventually taking a couple of sore ones to the face.

I do wonder if those who forced Canning’s father to leave a game before half-time because the abuse was so bad really love the Accies more than the sound of their own voices. Fergie would not have approved.