Globetrotter Calum settles on Clachnacuddin signing deal with Highland League club
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IT was Tom Waits who sang of never seeing his hometown until he stayed away too long.
Calum Ferguson, after years of living in a suitcase and circling the earth with a pair of football boots, knows just how the husky Californian crooner felt.
Having returned home and joined Clachnacuddin just over a decade after his Caley Thistle first team debut, the Gaelic-speaking globetrotter feels a mix of contentment and drive to put something back.
Clach’s strong community roots and Gaelic heritage also energise him.
“It is nice to be back where it all began,” Ferguson said. “Especially down at Grant Street, it is a proper community club, that Gaelic name, the stone there outside the Town House, it is all part of the Inverness identity.
“The club has had hard times, and it is about trying to help bring some good times back, building on that feelgood factor manager Jordan MacDonald has instilled.
“Despite a tough start, there is a freshness surrounding the team and hopefully I can play my part in helping them take the next step to where they want to be.”
At 28, Ferguson is passionately preoccupied with work for FC Sonas, an innovative educational charity he founded to unite football and Gaelic, but pulls on the Lilywhites shirt with pride and serious intent.
Ferguson is a serious individual. At 16, while some contemporaries were drinking cider in the backstreets, the fiercely intelligent Inverness Royal Academy fifth year was being elected to Lochardil and Drummond community council.
He has used his linguistic skills in work with BBC Radio nan Gàidheal and BBC Alba.
While team-mates and pals like Ryan Christie and Liam Polworth strode on in their careers, a troubling back injury barred progress for him.
Instead, he chose to use football talent to travel, tasting life at clubs in Canada, New Zealand, the USA and Northern Ireland, gaining youth international caps for Canada and representing the North American Cascadia region at a non-FIFA affiliated World Cup.
After all that pure adventure, the itchy feet are soothed.
“I still take my football very seriously and I’m there to get the best out of myself, while helping the younger team members as well,” he added.
