Must be why Souness hates blacks and foreigners.
He learnt the racism in Italy it’s a very backward country in that respect
no he picked that up in Italy… I see Lukaku git a dose of it last week
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That Graeme Souness and Phil Thompson cannot even agree on when their relationship started to break down reveals not only the depth of their feud but also how long it lasted, if it has even really ended.
The pair were pillars of the most decorated side in Liverpool’s history, one which won five league titles as well as three European Cups in the seven seasons they were team-mates.
Their shared story shows successful dressing rooms are not always the most harmonious, especially after a weekend where Sadio Mane’s outburst in Liverpool’s victory at Burnley led to reasonable questions about his rapport with Mohamed Salah. If that is what we see in public, then what happens in private?
Souness (circled left in the image above), at least, wonders whether Thompson’s attitude towards him changed in the summer of 1981 behind the curtains of a private function suite at the Burlington House hotel in Dublin. Liverpool had played a pre-season friendly with Home Farm at Tolka Park, winning 5-0. They were European champions and Thompson (circled right) had become the first Merseyside-born European Cup-winning captain in the club’s history. He was therefore “boosted by another injection of confidence he didn’t really need,” according to another team-mate in the room that night.
Jokes were flying, as they tended to on such trips. Trays of beer were supplied on the club’s account. It was just past midnight when Thompson, according to Souness in his 1999 autobiography, suggested he only married his first wife because she came from a wealthy background. “I tossed my pint of lager over him and threw a punch,” admitted Souness, who was separated from his captain by team-mates without Thompson being able to punch him back.
“This infuriated Thommo,” said one of the onlookers. It had seemed the next morning with clearer heads that the matter had been settled. “It was the sort of blow-out that happened regularly,” reflected another player. Yet Souness wondered whether Thompson ever forgave him or ever forgot.
“Players used to fight all the time,” says Bryan Robson, Manchester United’s midfield leader. “But if someone had a dig at me as captain and I didn’t get the chance to have a go back, I’d see it as a threat to my captaincy.”
Inside six months, Thompson would lose the responsibility he cherished most, one which gave him the privilege of celebrating his team’s latest European Cup victory by taking the trophy back to The Falcon pub in Kirkby, close to where he grew up. That he would lose the captaincy to Souness, for him, was not a coincidence — though he claims it was only at the point Bob Paisley revealed his decision that any connection he had previously with Souness began to melt away.
Souness had seen something of himself in Thompson because of his “burning ambition to be a success”. Yet their experiences had been different, with Thompson joining Liverpool as a YTS before reaching the first team without a great deal of disappointment featuring in his professional life, though this never impacted on his drive or determination.
Souness would emerge as one of football’s most fearless characters of the 1980s but, before that, he was allowed to leave Tottenham where he felt bullied by the club’s most experienced players — those, he believed, were threatened by his talents as well as his belief. Football had taught him that if a player lets one comment slip, others will follow. Although Thompson went out of his way to help Souness settle on Merseyside upon his arrival in 1978 by inviting him for nights out with Terry McDermott, he — like Thompson — was an emboldened personality by 1981, someone who was acutely aware of his high status and reputation in the game.
“There was piss-taking, arguments, fights and big drinking sessions almost on a weekly basis throughout the 1970s and 1980s,” one prominent Liverpool player says.
Thompson in action during the 1980 FA Charity Shield. (Photo: Allsport/Getty Images)
Ray Kennedy remembers Souness thumping him in training for the simple act of trying a long pass when he’d been instructed to feed the ball into the middle of midfield. Though Kennedy forgave Souness, Thompson — suggest some team-mates — was not able to after what happened in Dublin. Animosity festered over the season that followed, as Liverpool toiled through the first half of their league campaign, winning five, drawing six and losing four games.
The watershed would prove to be on a tumultuous Boxing Day. Joe Corrigan, Manchester City’s goalkeeper, was hit by a glass bottle and visiting players were instructed by their manager John Bond to hide on the floor of their bus as it was attacked as they left Anfield. Somewhere in the middle of all that was a 3-1 victory for City and Liverpool’s worst league performance at home in years.
Bruce Grobbelaar’s presence in goal was a problem for a defence that included Thompson. Grobbelaar had replaced Ray Clemence, Liverpool’s goalkeeper for the previous decade — someone the central defenders understood. The manner of City’s goals illustrated Liverpool’s problems.
“It took me a long time to adjust to being without Clem,” admitted Thompson, whose entire professional career had been spent playing in front of the England goalkeeper. Thompson remembered hesitating on the edge of his own six-yard box, taking two touches, which allowed Asa Hartford to seize possession and score City’s first. When his unruly clearance did not leave the penalty box and Grobbelaar dropped the catch, Thompson then made a spectacular save on the goal line. He was “doing what his goalkeeper should have done in the first place,” as the BBC commentator pointed out, before Kevin Bond slammed home the subsequent penalty.
Though Ronnie Whelan’s curling left-footed goal gave Liverpool late hope of a recovery, Thompson —who would have been sent off in the modern game for his role in City’s second — was also involved for City’s third of the afternoon. He allowed Kevin Reeves to get in front of him at the near post and confirm an away victory. It meant Liverpool entered 1982 twelfth in the league, a whopping nine points behind surprise leaders, Swansea City.
This lowly position led to a Daily Mirror prediction that the Anfield empire was “crumbling”. An anonymous column in the relatively conservative Daily Post newspaper the following Monday morning suggested it might even be time for Paisley to retire.
According to Ian Herbert in his biography of Paisley, it was Joe Fagan rather than the manager who took Liverpool’s players to task after losing to City. Phil Neal, another future Liverpool captain, remembered the senior figures getting the most criticism, with Souness being told he was not winning enough tackles and Dalglish reminded it was his job to score goals.
Paisley loitered in the corridor, gathering his thoughts, and decided to wait until the following week to address Liverpool’s problems. But the post-match inquest between Liverpool’s players went on too long for his liking — something which had been a feature of Thompson’s captaincy. Paisley felt such gatherings and introspection was counter-productive and this led to him marching back into the dressing room before saying: “The meetings must stop…get out of here.”
Paisley may have been a man of few indecipherable words but he was decisive and history proved him as a sound judge. Souness claims he was offered the captaincy at Melwood four days later as he stood behind the goal while other players practised their shooting. Souness sustained an ankle injury against City and was resting when Paisley approached him and said straight up: “Do you want to be captain?” Souness was surprised because he believed Neal and Dalglish were ahead of him in the pecking order. “It was never my style to go and ask for somebody else’s job,” he insisted.
He had thought Thompson had “dug his own grave” a few weeks earlier after Liverpool lost 3-0 to Brazilian side Flamengo in the Intercontinental Cup final in Japan. Paisley reacted to that defeat by turning on Thompson, asking him in front of the squad whether the challenge of captaining Liverpool was proving too much for him. Paisley did not let players cross him and, when Thompson responded to that suggestion by unleashing a broadside of his own, some of his team-mates speculated how the manager would react. For Souness, “Phil lost the job when he gave Bob a mouthful in front of the rest of the lads”.
There had been some half-jokes in the Liverpool dressing room about Souness’s relationship with Paisley, with players wondering whether it was merely a coincidence that they lived close to one another. Paisley had a friend in West Derby who owned a garage and on his way into training he’d stop for a cup of tea before reading the Racing Post and popping around the corner to a bookmaker to place a couple of bets. Souness used to take his children to school around that time of day and he got into the habit of meeting Paisley “every morning — but I was never seeking to take an advantage”.
From Thompson’s perspective, it was understandable he was hurt to find other players knew about his sacking as captain before he’d been told himself. The squad was on the coach run between Anfield and Melwood when Fagan approached Thompson as he sat beside McDermott, telling him that Paisley wanted to see him in his office after training. Ray Kennedy was sitting behind the pair and he lurched forward, telling Thompson: “I know what this is about…Graeme Souness will be the new captain.” Thompson resisted the urge to unleash his fury. “Now there’s a surprise,” he said quietly, folding his arms and staring out of the window.
The meeting that followed was brief. Though Paisley was a ruthless decision-maker he was uncomfortable in confrontation and bad at expressing himself. When he told Thompson he was taking the captaincy off him “for now”, Thompson knew that was the end for him. Though he disagreed with the decision, he struggled with the idea of other players knowing about it before him as well as the thought of Souness potentially promoting himself at his expense whenever he and Paisley met at the West Derby garage. “It’s Graeme fucking Souness, isn’t it” he asked, moving the conversation on to the significant detail of his replacement. Typically, Paisley muttered a reply — something like, “Aye, we’ll see how it goes n’that.”
Thompson decided two things as he drove away from Anfield’s car park that afternoon. He would not let Paisley’s decision break him, deciding instead to be positive and more aggressive than ever on the pitch at least. He would also ignore Souness, which he managed for several months as Liverpool’s form returned, winning 19 of their next 20 league games to become champions again.
Thompson cannot remember which away fixture it was but Liverpool’s players were on their morning walk and split into two groups when Souness waited for Thompson to catch up. “We need to talk,” Souness said, telling him he had nothing to do with Paisley’s decision to change captain. “Ok,” Thompson said. He knew Liverpool were getting closer to another title and he didn’t want to jeopardise that by starting an argument.
By then, all of the Liverpool squad were aware of Bond’s comments to Liverpool’s coaching staff in the Boot Room immediately after City’s Boxing Day win at Anfield, where he had claimed that the result had put Liverpool out of the title race. Paisley wasn’t around to hear that observation, but Ronnie Moran, the legendary coach, told Bond: “Just wait and see about that. It’s a long time until May.”
The tension between Thompson and Souness simmered for the next two seasons but it did not stop the Liverpool tank from continuing to roll through Europe while dominating the domestic game as well. The pair would leave the club around the same time in 1984. Souness decided to test himself in Italy with Sampdoria while Thompson signed for Sheffield United in the English second division.
While Souness returned to Britain as player-manager of Rangers before leading the Glasgow club into an unprecedented era of success, Thompson was soon back at Liverpool after “Kenny Dalglish called me home” by offering him a place on his coaching staff.
Thompson remained in position for the next six years until Souness returned to Anfield himself as manager. He was “quite content to let him (Thompson) get on with his job while I concentrated on mine”.
“It never crossed my mind I might have a problem with him,” Souness stressed.
The mood shifted quickly, however — according to Thompson — when he went to Peter Robinson, the club’s secretary, to discuss a new contract. Souness was attempting to heave Liverpool towards the 21st century by changing training methods, daily routines and taking more responsibility on himself. His achievement in transforming Rangers into the dominant force in Scottish football had, according to some of the players that were still at Liverpool from his own playing days, “made him give off the impression that he felt indestructible — capable of taking anything on.”
This included contract negotiations, a decision which proved to be a big mistake and gave former team-mates reason to bicker about their new manager as he tried to reduce the age of the squad. Thompson, who’d always gone to Robinson like any other football-related employee, was told by Souness abruptly: “I believe you have been to see Peter about a rise? I don’t want you doing this. In future, I will deal with any of those decisions. I am dealing with everything.”
Souness, according to Thompson, reassured him that he saw him as his new Ronnie Moran. Moran was notoriously strict and Thompson saw Souness’s comparison as an invitation to take on the role of enforcer with the reserves. Because of a horrendous injury list in the first team, which many speculated was a result of Souness’s gruelling methods, the manager’s interest in the players at reserve level increased as he looked for greater squad depth.
Thompson’s voice, Souness thought, was echoing around near-deserted grounds and some of the messages being dealt out were harsher than necessary. “Phil’s cursing and swearing could be heard by everyone within earshot,” Souness wrote in his 1999 autobiography, though he was not immediately concerned because he appreciated Thompson was passionate about his job.
Thompson reasoned that Moran’s authoritarian approach had served him well. “It did no harm to my career,” he said. Board members at Anfield, however, did not feel the same way. When Souness told Thompson to tone down his comments without reprimanding him, he figured that would be the end of the story but there were more problems to come.
Steve Heighway was the legendary Liverpool winger with a university degree who ran the club’s youth system. Heighway would play an integral role in the development of Steve McManaman, Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen, Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard. Souness received word that some of Liverpool’s young players were scared to make the step up from the youth system into the reserves because of Thompson’s ferocious reputation.
Souness saw Heighway as a crucial member of his staff, someone who was “highly respected … and enjoyed the trust of the parents and kids alike”. He recognised it as important that the club should have such a figure in his position, giving Liverpool an advantage when it came to attracting talent to the club. McManaman, Fowler, Owen and Carragher had all grown up as Evertonians but Heighway was key in bringing them to Liverpool. “The parents, no matter who they support, can’t ignore Liverpool when Steve Heighway knocks on your front door,” Carragher recalled.
When an argument exploded between Heighway and Thompson, Souness was asked by his secretary to intervene. Her office at Anfield was next to Heighway’s and she could hear them “going at it hammer and tongs”. The secretary feared the pair were going to start a fight and Souness described the language as “embarrassing”. But Liverpool’s manager was prepared to let the incident lie providing Thompson “modified” his words when communicating with players and staff alike.
This stance changed after Souness heard about conversations involving Thompson in his absence. A triple heart bypass operation had left Souness in a Manchester hospital and Moran in charge of first-team affairs with Roy Evans as his assistant. Thompson had allegedly attempted to “promote” himself in the power gap that Souness had left behind, dominating team talks before games.
On the penultimate weekend of the 1991-92 season, Liverpool beat Manchester United at Anfield, a result that handed Leeds United the last First Division title. In Anfield’s boardroom after that victory, Souness alleges that Thompson bad-mouthed him in front of Brian Kidd, United’s assistant, who promptly told Alex Ferguson. Ferguson called Archie Knox, the former United assistant who had returned to Scotland to work with Walter Smith at Rangers — the club Souness had transformed with Smith’s help as assistant before returning to Liverpool. The next day, Smith drove all the way from Glasgow to inform Souness what was going on at his own club.
Souness told Robinson that he wanted to sack Thompson. When Robinson put the motion to the board of directors, “there was not one objection” according to Souness, who was in the room when the decision was ratified.
Liverpool would beat Sunderland in the FA Cup final in May 1992 and when Thompson went to collect his winners’ bonus from Robinson, he was told that he should speak to Souness first. It was a Thursday when Thompson called him, demanding to know what was going on. Though Souness initially told him to wait until Monday for a meeting, Thompson was insistent and so via his car phone, Souness told him: “I’m sacking you.”
In his autobiography, Thompson recalled a subsequent conversation with Liverpool’s chairman, David Moores, when he told him: “You and I know this is personal.” He wondered whether Souness feared for his own position and had wanted to remove competition. In April 1992, Souness’s decision to grant an interview about his heart operation to The Sun, a newspaper which had printed lies about the role of Liverpool supporters in the Hillsborough disaster, had led to calls for him to be sacked. Thompson was one of the names in the running to be his replacement.
Souness lasted another season and a half before leaving Anfield with a shattered reputation, but Thompson returned to the club in 1998, saying: “I’ll always love Liverpool more than I hate Souness.” They would not speak again until 2009 after seeing each other at the funeral of Bryce Morrison, another long-serving secretary at Liverpool.
Separately, the pair claimed then that the rift was over, yet anyone who has listened to the rawness in some of the stories offered by Thompson in one of his after-dinner speeches would arrive at the conclusion it would not take much for old wounds to re-open. Though both now work for Sky television, perhaps it is significant they have never appeared on the same show.
According to one former Liverpool player who played with the pair, the hostility between them helped the team but only for a short time as Liverpool’s pursued the 1981-82 First Division title. “Thommo was desperate to prove he was still an important player while Graeme was desperate to prove he was going to make a great captain,” he recalled. “A manager can use this dynamic between players to his advantage but amongst his own staff…it never works out.”
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I’d say managing the huns did it
Thompson is a mouthy cunt like Carragher and Aldridge. Delighted to read Souness decked him.
Graeme Souness broke the mould at Glasgow Rangers when he signed Maurice Johnston, a Catholic and Mark Walters, their first black player. A very progressive and forward thinking man. The Pretend IRA who view everything through a sectarian prism, can’t abide Souness.
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Scousers generally are (mouthy) cunts
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Your hero beats women
Why should we listen to you
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They have a tradition of headhunting known racists
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Suarez racially abuses evra, they defend him
Suarez celebrated scoring a goal against him, they go kray kray
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Always the victims, very nasty operation
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Oooft
Now I know where @briantinnion got his username from
Graeme Souness and Liverpool. Will a lost love ever be rekindled?
By Simon Hughes Aug 6, 2020
71 
Among all of the former players asked to consider the scale of the achievement when Liverpool clinched the league title for the first time in 30 years, some of the most fascinating reaction came from Graeme Souness.
While Kenny Dalglish started to well up as he wore a red scarf for his TV interviews and Phil Thompson invited some of his family members to join the party in front of the cameras, Souness spoke about the club he once captained and managed like it was a relative he still cares about deeply even though he knows the relationship isn’t what it once was.
Quietly, Souness appeared chuffed to bits – the most satisfied of them all. Apparently, he stayed up until the small hours once his TV commitments had finished, celebrating with wife Karen in the garden of their home in Poole, Dorset – somewhat typically over a bottle or two of champagne.
When he became a European Cup-winning captain in 1984 by delivering a gladiatorial performance against Roma in their own stadium, one of his best friends in the team was Michael Robinson, the Blackpool-raised centre-forward turned Spanish television legend.
Souness’ feelings after Chelsea beat Manchester City to confirm Liverpool as champions intensified when he thought about what Robinson would think of it, remembering that his last game in a commentary box before his death from cancer in late April had been at his beloved Anfield. Robinson, a huge Liverpool supporter, would have taken great pleasure from witnessing them secure their 19th league title.
Souness had been one of the first to speak about his friend when he passed away eight weeks earlier, and by the end of one interview was unable to find any more words after mentioning the impact Robinson’s loss would have on his family.
It would be understandable if a very personal sense of relief washed over Souness across those early hours of June 26 as well, because he knows that despite his contribution towards Liverpool’s greatness during the 1970s and 1980s, he is the person most associated with their subsequent decline.
There will still be conversations about where it went wrong for a club who were the most dominant in England before he succeeded Dalglish in April 1991 but an end to that story means the frequency of those exchanges will probably reduce now.
Souness’ trajectory acts as a warning to those wonderful players who believe they can go back to where they are loved and become wonderful managers as well. Steven Gerrard is conscious of falling down a similar hole should he decide to follow the same path. Like Souness, he is a legendary Liverpool captain who has taken his first senior managerial steps at Rangers, a club who have suffered from years of drastic underachievement.
It sits uncomfortably with Gerrard that across his last 13 years in the game, he has won just one trophy – the League Cup in 2012. By comparison, Souness’ career from the point he joined Liverpool as a player in 1978 to the point he returned as their manager 13 years later was a period of almost unbroken personal success.
Gerrard should also realise that Souness’ experiences did not prepare him suitably for the challenges that lay ahead when he took the job. Perhaps his aura and sense of invincibility ended up undermining him. Quickly, his legacy as a Liverpool player would mean very little to so many.
On reflection, it was quite a thing for a Catholic boy to be left in front of the TV watching a review of the Scottish Premier Division’s 1989-90 season. The videotape box had Souness’ moustache plastered on the front and it had been a campaign in which Rangers won their third title under him in four years, finishing a whopping 17 points (at a time when it was still only two points for a win) ahead of Celtic, who were way down in a miserable fifth position.
My father had been a season ticket holder at Anfield and Souness was his hero – ahead of even Dalglish. When Souness became Liverpool manager, I was seven years old and trusted my dad when he told me the club was in safe hands.
Even after everything that happened, meeting him for the first time was exciting and daunting. Souness was sitting alone in a darkened corner, legs crossed, when I walked into the Sky Sports studio at Anfield ahead of what would be a win over Manchester United in September 2008.
There was a feeling of incarceration in that working space because presenter Richard Keys and lead pundit Andy Gray were babbling away and Souness gave me the impression he’d rather be elsewhere, so he could talk properly about his feelings. A shard of light cut across his face and I ended up comparing him to a prisoner of war in a movie. Even with his determination not to be the centre of attention, a natural magnetism pulled you in his direction.
He was a formidable-looking figure, though smaller than you imagine considering his presence on the pitch and on screen. A bit of a contradiction. Robinson had once told me Souness was “to this day, still trying very hard not to be this lovely, cuddly person when, really, he is”.
Souness spoke gently, with that smooth Edinburgh accent of his. He was respectful, persuasive and regretful. He admitted to me that returning to Anfield as an opposition manager, as he did with Southampton, Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United, didn’t bother him because he was in combat mode.
Any other capacity, however, was different. He was left out by the club when reunions were organised. Team-mates who used to be friends had stopped keeping in touch. He didn’t always feel welcome, but that was ultimately his fault he concluded, wishing he could turn the clock back and put it right.
Yet he was also smart enough to realise if he thought about that too much, it would eat him up. He’d never be able to lead a balanced life.
It was past 10pm when my phone started vibrating, five or six years later.
I was nervous about answering because of the name on the screen: SOUNESS.
I’d interviewed him again for a book I was writing about Liverpool during the 1990s, this time from an airport departure lounge in Edinburgh. I’d established by then he certainly wasn’t a nervous type because everything he said that afternoon was delivered with confidence.
Yet I think he was worried about the way some of it might look if his words got presented in a way with which they were not meant.
We had talked about everything that went wrong at Liverpool, starting with recruitment. That led on to the breakdown of his relationships with many of the senior players, the majority of whom had once been team-mates.
It was towards the end when we arrived at his decision to grant The Sun an interview about his triple heart bypass operation, one published on the third anniversary of Hillsborough. As the same newspaper had printed lies about the role of Liverpool supporters in the disaster, his reputation was shattered. Yet somehow, he clung on to his job for another 21 months.
“I’d just like to thank you for giving me an even crack,” he said.
This was not a conversation I expected to happen.
“Oh, er…” I replied, not really knowing what to say, wondering whether I had gone too easy on him.
The conclusion of the chapter about him went something along the lines of Liverpudlians probably being able to forgive him in time for failing as a manager but his association with The Sun gave that paper credibility at a time when grieving families were fighting to clear the names of lost loved ones.
Just typing out that sentence now makes me angry.
How could an intelligent man with an acute understanding of place make such a craven decision?
“I deserve all the criticism in the world, and you’ve done that,” he continued.
“But you’ve also been fair.”
There is a great line at the end of another passage of writing about Souness’ time as Liverpool manager in Brian Reade’s 2008 book, 43 Years With The Same Bird. Reade’s relationship with Souness represented many supporters from the city: revered as a player – one of the best that has ever been. But as a manager? He couldn’t wait for him to leave.
Reade had worked at the Liverpool Echo and wrote numerous columns about Souness’ suitability after what happened with The Sun. They would meet a few years later at an event, when Souness sidled up behind Reade and told him that he was the person who got him the sack. Reade replied straight away with something along the lines of, “No, Graeme. You did that all by yourself…”
Where did it all go wrong?
My dad was not alone in thinking he was the dream appointment. In Souness’ words, however, “I was blinded by my feelings for Liverpool”, despite having it good in Glasgow, where the pressure and expectation on him was rising but tempered because he knew he had the support of the chairman, David Murray, whom he socialised with most nights of the week in Edinburgh.
This prompted him to reject the chance to manage Liverpool twice before he finally relented, even though Murray attempted to keep him at Ibrox by offering him a blank contract where he could fill in the details himself. Murray warned him taking the Liverpool job would be a huge mistake. “I have to admit, he was right,” Souness told me.
He returned to Merseyside with further warnings from club secretary Peter Robinson and long-time youth development officer Tom Saunders about the scale of the rebuilding project waiting for him. He was inheriting an ageing squad and Robinson thought the only player capable of remaining in the team long term was a then 27-year-old John Barnes.
Souness was furious early in his reign when Chelsea’s Vinnie Jones desecrated the famous This is Anfield sign in the stadium tunnel by scribbling “Bothered” on it and, rather than seek retribution, some Liverpool players laughed it off. He quickly concluded that some had “lost their passion” for the club because of their demands in contract negotiations. Several knew the next deal under Souness might be their last and they also could see that wages were increasing at other clubs who were ploughing millions of pounds of new money from the advent of the Premier League into their squads.
Robinson used to lead such discussions and while there are some claims Souness insisted on taking that responsibility away from him because he wanted to control everything, he told me Robinson was happy to pass it on because he felt uncomfortable dealing with the spiralling sums of money.
For almost a quarter of a century, indeed, negotiation had been an outstanding feature of Robinson’s leadership. There had been a routine at Liverpool – a club notoriously tight with wages – where he would low-ball his offer before the manager would enter the room and promise to get Robinson to make a raise towards a figure where Liverpool’s administrator actually valued the player. This would make the player feel like he was winning and automatically increase his respect for his new boss. That routine was now broken and instead, players often left the room harbouring resentment towards Souness because he rarely, if ever, budged.
He called it his “first big mistake”, and he wishes he could have been more diplomatic but instead, he sold a raft of established players and suddenly was buying under pressure and needing new signings to fit in straight away. Though he admitted, “I should have been far cuter”, it was clear he also felt the young players brought in from other clubs by predecessor Dalglish were not good enough.
In so many ways, the decline at Liverpool had already started but nobody realised because the results were still encouraging. Yet Souness’ own record in the transfer market was poor. He considered Mark Wright, Michael Thomas, Rob Jones and David James to be good signings. Neil Ruddock, he thought, would have been in that category had he looked after himself.
Yet too many clearly did not work.
Jan Molby could tell Julian Dicks wasn’t a Liverpool player from the first training session, when he kept knocking long balls down the touchline for Barnes to chase. Paul Stewart and Nigel Clough never justified their big fees. In the foreign market, Souness bought Torben Piechnik and Istvan Kozma but passed on the opportunity to sign Peter Schmeichel, who had written a letter to him asking for a trial. When Michel Platini recommended he sign Eric Cantona and Souness did his research, he concluded he did not need another challenging personality in the dressing room because he was already fighting fires with Bruce Grobbelaar.
Away from the negotiating table, there was more resistance when Souness tried to change coaching methods, and this intensified when there was an injury crisis. Having played in Italy, he had seen the way football was going. This meant new diets and daily patterns. At Rangers, the players listened when he encouraged them to eat better and drink less. When a crate of low per cent alcohol was heaved onto the Liverpool bus for an away game in London, it was left at the next service station.
There had been a longstanding tradition at Liverpool where the players got changed at Anfield before travelling a couple of miles to Melwood by bus for training. This, Bill Shankly believed, helped foster camaraderie but Souness wanted a slicker operation more in keeping with the 21st century. For Liverpool to be competitive, Anfield – like Old Trafford – needed to capitalise on its history and potential profile as a tourist destination. “We couldn’t have buses going in and out of Anfield every day while fans milled about,” he concluded. Souness was also accused of ordering the destruction of the famous Boot Room, but he denied that. England was gearing up to stage Euro 96 and with Anfield hosting some of the tournament’s games, extra space was needed for media delegations from European countries.
The one decision Souness did regret “forever” was his deal with The Sun . “I don’t have a defence.”
There had been a history of heart problems in his family and he denies the stresses of the job triggered the need for a life-saving operation at the age of just 38. He was determined to push himself and get back to work but when he collapsed, he ended up spending 28 days in hospital rather than 10. It was during this period that he agreed to sell the story of his hospital ordeal to Mike Ellis, The Sun’s Merseyside reporter. Souness had seen Liverpool legends Ian Rush and Tommy Smith give interviews to that newspaper since Hillsborough without any fallout, while Ellis was a respected figure on the local patch amongst other players, who spoke to him regularly. Souness also argued that he had been in Glasgow and “wrapped up in Rangers” when Hillsborough happened and so did not appreciate the scale of the resentment in the city towards The Sun, though admitted “ignorance is no excuse”.
The story was due to be printed a week before the disaster’s anniversary but got pushed back. In the meantime, Ellis went on holiday and “would have advised the paper not to print it that day, there’s no doubt about it”, Souness said. Liverpool’s FA Cup semi-final replay against Portsmouth going to extra time on April 13 meant the story got pushed back again by 24 hours, from April 14 to April 15. “It looked terrible, me smiling and confident of a recovery on the same day a lot of people were still mourning.” The corny front-page headline accompanied by a picture of him kissing then-girlfriend Karen made it even worse: “Loverpool.”
Souness says he gave all of the proceeds from the interview to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital but “what I really should have done is resigned”. At the time, he was desperate to put right what he had got so dreadfully wrong, but this was made more challenging, he claimed, by the culture of reporting on Merseyside where journalists worked as a pack. This resulted in a collective anger at being left out of an exclusive story.
There were very few sympathetic voices in the column inches when the public tide turned against him. Souness did not look well as he sat looking on passively as his team beat Sunderland 2-0 at Wembley to win the FA Cup just under a month later – a bright spot in a horrid league season which did not improve the following year, when Liverpool were just three points above the relegation places in March.
Some supporters refused to attend matches again until Souness was gone but he remained until January 1994. He felt “ashamed” when he heard opposite number Russell Osman’s team talk in an adjoining room at the Moat House hotel before an FA Cup replay against second-tier Bristol City at Anfield. Osman called Liverpool “weak as piss” and sounded like he genuinely believed his team could cause an upset.
A few hours later, Brian Tinnion’s goal sent the visitors through.
Souness resigned before the weekend.
Another Souness feud involved Phil Thompson. Though privately, the latter especially has stressed the relationship will never truly heal, there have been small signs of improvement.
The pair were not in the same room but the thought of them appearing on the same television show and roughly appear on similar pages in any discussion would have been unimaginable up until a few years ago. Yet that is what happened on Sky after Liverpool clinched the title in June.
Meanwhile, the dynamic with the players Souness fell out with so dramatically has changed for the better. There is always a caveat when any of them mention him but it does seem that his willingness to admit mistakes has led some to open up about their own shortcomings.
There is recognition now that Souness had some of the right ideas, considering the way football has gone, but there is agreement that he went about it totally the wrong way. “He was an everything-at-once sort of fella, Graeme,” Steve McMahon told The Athletic in June. “If only he’d slowed down a bit…”
The most significant challenge around the theme of reconciliation, however, is with the Liverpool fans. It would be understandable if some found it impossible to forgive, especially when you consider court cases about Hillsborough are still happening 31 years after the disaster.
Last month, though, Souness was invited to talk for 20 minutes at an end of season meeting of the Merseyside branch of Liverpool’s supporters’ club, held on Zoom. He consistently referred to the club he used to represent with distinction as a player and less so as a manager as “we”, and the conversation flowed nicely, before finally arriving where it always does when Souness and Liverpool are concerned.
“If there’s one thing you could change about what you did as manager, Graeme…”
That was when he stuttered a bit, rephrasing his answer. “I should never have taken the job,” he replied straight away – reasoning that other opportunities to take over at Anfield would surely have come his way, given the sustained culture of success he’d helped create at Rangers. “I wish I’d said no to Liverpool in 1991.”
He could not bring himself to name the newspaper and the interview that shifted perceptions of him. “I made some mistakes,” he admitted. “One obvious one, a big one… I wish I could turn the clock back.”
Tom Keegan, one of the organisers of an event which involved more than 50 members, called Souness the greatest midfielder the club has ever had, “better even than Steven Gerrard.”
Souness laughed away at that description, but did not correct him.
That was when he promised the group he’d be delighted to speak again some time.
He reminded Keegan: “You’ve got my email…”
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Sometimes you forget that there are young gentlemen posting on TFK.
I recall watching the highlights of that Bristol City win at Anfield on Sportsnight on BBC (cc @mickee321, @Sidney).
It’d be on at around 10.30pm on Wednesday nights, usually on BBC2 and was great for FA Cup replays. You’d have extended highlights of a feature game, other reports and also a recap of the Tuesday night games with either Tony Gubba or Gerald Sinstadt reporting.
You have to remember that it was less streamlined and technologically advanced in those days and they’d be cutting and editing a game that may only have finished at 9.40pm, or even later if it went to extra time.
As a result, you’d often be crestfallen when Des Lynam or Steve Ryder would announce that the football would be coming up later on but first port of call was York Hall Bethnal Green for a British welterweight title bout or Ulster Hall for a Dave “Boy” McAulay world title defence. You’d then be hoping that they’d skip a round here or there but many’s the night you had to watch full deferred coverage of a fight before the football started, while your auld lad would be trying to get you off to bed.
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Or sometimes the best coverage you’d get would be trying to get a longwave signal onto BBC five live and listening to Alan Green commentating. I had a little homemade shelf I made that I could temporarily leave the radio up on so it would be up high and the ariel half hanging out the window so it would work. Mad now with the wall to wall HDTV coverage of every game going.
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You east coast lads must have fared a bit better with the signal tho? It was a pure cunt of a thing to maintain …It would tune out for a couple of minutes and you’d be trying to figure out what happened in that time when you eventually got it back …
& wexford youths playing 100m up the road
FFS