*Graeme Souness turns 70 today, and recently confirmed he would be leaving the Sky Sports studio after 15 years as a pundit for the company. Here, Dan Kay looks back on his career and complex Liverpool legacy...
There are some legendary figures who have worn the captain’s armband over the years at Anfield.
From Bill Shankly’s ‘Colossus’ Ron Yeats to local heroes like the ‘Anfield Iron’ Tommy Smith, the first Scouser to lift the European Cup Phil Thompson, the ‘Huyton Hammer’ Steven Gerrard and modern day on-and-off the pitch leader Jordan Henderson, Liverpool have been blessed with a series of skippers who understood the club’s values and became the living embodiment of them.
When all-time Liverpool XIs are discussed however, there is one name which regularly features when who might captain such a side as well as the identity of the Reds’ greatest ever midfielder is up for grabs, despite his legacy in the eyes of some having been forever tarnished following an unhappy return to Anfield as manager - Graeme Souness.
The Scot’s playing career was one of the most decorated and impressive of anyone to have worn the famous red shirt yet his time as manager is generally acknowledged as being a key factor in the sharp decline suffered after the all-conquering 1970s and 80s and the thirty-year league title drought finally brought to an end by Jurgen Klopp’s side in 2020.
So how did such an iconic figure in Liverpool history manage to blot his copybook so badly and damage his reputation in the eyes of supporters who had previously held so much respect for him?
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He arrived at Anfield little more than four months short of his 25th birthday in January 1978 having already had the best part of a decade’s grounding in English football but it had initially been far from straightforward for a man who many admirers later said made the game look easy.
Having signed schoolboy forms with Tottenham at the age of 15 in 1968 after being recommended to Spurs’ Double winning manager Bill Nicholson by legendary Scottish midfielder Dave Mackay, he struggled to settle in London and failed to make an impression in the first team.
“I went to Spurs at 15 and thought I was going to be a superstar,” he told Simon Hughes for his book ‘Men In White Suits’.
“I was headstrong and pretty soon I was knocking on Bill Nic’s door asking why I wasn’t in the first team.”
After making only one first team appearance in four years in a UEFA Cup tie as a substitute, Souness was sold to Middlesbrough in 1972 where he gradually began to find his feet primarily under the tutelage of Boro manager and former England World Cup winner Jack Charlton who was impressed by the young midfielder’s physicality and combative nature as well as innate footballing instincts.
Having helped the Teeside club get promoted to the First Division as champions in 1974, Souness’s raw ability and presence in midfield began to attract interest from the country’s top clubs and in January 1978 Liverpool manager Bob Paisley swooped, paying a record fee at the time between two English clubs of £352,000 beating by £2,000 what Manchester United handed Leeds for striker Joe Jordan only a week earlier.
Despite the Reds being reigning domestic and European champions, Paisley - now in his fourth season as manager after succeeding Bill Shankly - was in the process of revamping his team with Souness becoming the third Scottish player the canny north-easterner had signed in barely six months following the acquisitions of 21-year-old Alan Hansen for £100,000 from Partick Thistle the previous May and Kenny Dalglish from Celtic for a British record £440,000 three months later.
Over the next half dozen years, the trio would go on form the spine of the team during arguably Liverpool’s most successful ever period and Paisley’s comments in the wake of signing Souness demonstrated his confidence that his latest new boy would be able to fulfil the tricky task of making a great side even better.
“There are not many players who come up to our standard”, the Reds boss explained.
“Graeme can pass a ball, he’s got vision and he’s got strength. He’ll play in central midfield, which is his position, and we’ll sort out the rest from there.”
Talking years later to Sky Sports, Souness himself revealed how he was not intimidated by the expectation levels given his big-money move.
“I’ve always had a lot of confidence in my own ability”, he said.
“I was the youngest of three sons and I had great parents. I came from a very strong, stable background and that stood me in good stead.
“I can never, ever remember that price-tag being an issue for me. I’ve never been overawed by any challenge. The bigger the challenge, the more I enjoyed it. The bigger the game, the more I rose to the occasion.
“When I got to Liverpool, I was walking into a dressing room which contained some absolute legends, guys who were serial winners with big personalities.
“I felt I fitted in almost immediately. Without wanting to sound big-headed, I actually thought I should have been there before I was. I felt ready for a bigger challenge about a year earlier.”
He would soon fit seamlessly into a Liverpool system which he arguably helped take to a new level but not without some acclimatisation which began on his very first day of training at Melwood.
"That first day at Anfield, 10 January 1978, was a revelation”, he recalled.
“It seems a long time now but I remember how normal and ordinary it all was, no prima donnas, no superstars.
“I made only one error on that first morning, I asked Tommy Smith if I could borrow his hairdryer (I know it’s hard to imagine tough guy Smithy with a hairdryer but it’s absolutely true) and he turned to Phil Neal and said pointedly: ‘Everyone is allowed one mistake’. I took my own in the future."
After two successive seasons in which Liverpool had been crowned champions and won a European trophy, 1977/78 was proving more difficult at Anfield - newly-promoted Nottingham Forest would take their domestic crown the following May - and the Saturday before Souness’ first training session, Paisley’s men were dumped out of the FA Cup at the third round stage after a 4-2 defeat at Chelsea.
In line for a debut the following weekend in the First Division fixture at West Brom having impressed in training, Souness tried to have a quiet word with Joe Fagan ahead of the trip to the Hawthorns about what might be expected of him ahead of his first-team bow only to be told in no uncertain terms he would need to figure it out himself.
"‘Joe, I’ve been here a week and no-one has said anything to me. How does the manager want me to play?’”, he remembered asking Paisley’s sagacious Scouse assistant.
“So Fagan raised his voice to ensure the whole dressing room could hear and replied: ‘F*** off! We spent all this money on you and now you’re asking me how to play football!’"
Souness quickly worked out what his new side required from him, the Guardian report from Reds’ 1-0 win over the Baggies remarking that the new boy “does the simple things well, as do Liverpool, so not unsurprisingly he fitted easily into the midfield role of covering, tackling, making a simple pass and moving forward for the return.. he will bring subtlety to the attack” and, after surprising defeats in his second and third appearances at home to Birmingham City and away to Coventry, his fourth match for the club saw him really make his mark and show a packed Anfield just what he was capable of.
With Manchester United, who the previous May had ended the Reds’ Treble dreams with a fortuitous FA Cup final win at Wembley, in town and Liverpool having just reinvigorated their season by reaching the club’s first ever League Cup final after a two-legged semi final victory over Arsenal, Souness notched his first goal for his new club with a strike of majestic quality later voted BBC’s Goal of the Season.
Having already gone close to opening the scoring with a venomous left foot volley, the Scot broke the deadlock six minutes before half time in what would be a 3-1 Liverpool win when having played Terry McDermott into space down the right flank with a delicately chipped pass, he hared into the box with arm raised for the return pass and met the midfielder’s cross with another thumping left foot volley which left United keeper Paddy Roche rooted to the spot.
With legendary winger Ian Callaghan about to call time on his unsurpassed 857-game Liverpool career, Souness quickly became firmly established in the midfield and, while Brian Clough’s Forest would beat Paisley’s men to that season’s League Cup as well as the championship, his first campaign at Anfield would still end in glory with the Scot himself playing a major role.
Victories over Dynamo Dresden, Benfica and Borussia Moenchengladbach put the European Cup holders through to a second successive final and in sight of becoming the first English side to retain the trophy.
With the showdown against FC Bruges being held at Wembley, an estimated 90,000 Liverpudlians packed into the national stadium but had to endure the frustration of the Belgians’ tactics stifling their heroes until the 65th minute when Souness received a defensive clearance on the edge of the box by controlling the ball on his chest, swiftly transferring the ball from left foot to right as two defenders converged and threading a sublime through ball through the tiniest of gaps into the path of Dalglish who chipped home what proved to be the winning goal that confirmed the European Cup would be staying at Anfield for another twelve months.
Souness recalled to UEFA years later what it meant to gain the first winner’s medal of his career in the biggest game in club football.
“The Liverpool team of the time gave off a feeling of invincibility and there was just no way we were going to lose that game.
“Brugge started in a nervous fashion, getting men behind the ball and that's how the 90 minutes were: us on the front foot and them not wanting to step out and make a game of it.
“As for the goal, I can remember it was more or less on the 18-yard line. The ball was in the air and as it was dropping I just managed to get my pass off at the right time and the weight on it was right; Kenny was able to do the hard bit and lift it over the goalkeeper. One-on-one with the goalkeeper, there was no one better than Kenny.
“Afterwards we went back to a hotel with the wives and girlfriends and we spent a few hours there, celebrated with lots of champagne. Then I took my medal to my mum and dad and my landlady who I lived with when I was at Middlesbrough. I went to see the three of them and woke them up at some ridiculous hour, ordered champagne and made them drink it with me. Very, very special times, and I'm so lucky to have experienced it.”
Champagne wasn’t solely confined to special occasions for Souness at that time and recollections of his first year at Liverpool gives some insight into the drinking culture at the club, and in football as a whole it should be said, at that time which ironically he became determined to put an end to when returning to Anfield as manager well over a decade later.
"As a kid you usually live in digs where there is someone to keep an eye on you but when I moved from Middlesbrough to Liverpool I was given a room in the Holiday Inn. This was the start of the third period of my life during which I very nearly managed to wreck my own career. I lived there for nine months and it was then I earned the nickname of Champagne Charlie.
“The routine was quickly established. I would train at Melwood, go back for lunch and a few beers, get involved in a session at the cocktail bar, sleep between 4 and 7 p.m and then crawl back down for dinner. If that became a little too boring there was always a club open somewhere, where they were only too happy to have a Liverpool player gracing their bar or the dancefloor."
The penny soon dropped that some discipline would be needed to fulfil his undoubted vast potential and Souness soon knuckled down to become a permanent fixture at the heart of what many regard as Liverpool’s finest ever midfield - Case, Souness, McDermott, Kennedy.
‘Champagne Charlie’s’ first full season at Anfield, 1978/79, saw one of the club’s dominant ever title wins with a record points tally of 68 (which would equate to 98 in the three-points-for-a-win era), conceding a mere 16 goals in their 42 league matches with only four being shipped all campaign at Anfield.
Another championship medal would follow the next May as Souness’s unique style - “a bear of a man with the touch of a violinist”, David Miller - proved perfectly suited to Paisley’s side, his irresistible blend of subtlety and aggression combined with desire to succeed and tactical nous making him a force of nature in the Liverpool midfield.
The next necessary evolution of Paisley’s Liverpool meant something of a transitional season in 1980/81 and a fifth place finish behind surprise champions Aston Villa but Souness’s playing career at Anfield saw at least one trophy won every year and, just before the Reds took on West Ham at Wembley looking to win the League Cup for the first time (which they would eventually do after a replay at Villa Park), Souness made a major contribution to what would become the club’s third European Cup triumph in five seasons.
After despatching Finnish minnows Oulu Palloseura and Alex Ferguson’s Scottish champions Aberdeen in the opening rounds, Paisley’s men took on CSKA Sofia of Bulgaria in the first leg of the quarter-finals at Anfield and all but booked their last four spot with a 5-1 hammering embroidered with a savagely beautiful hat-trick from their Scottish midfield general.
The first came when Dalglish kept an attack alive following a Hansen surge forward from the back and Souness showed great close control to evade his marker on the edge of the box and fire home low in the bottom corner from 15 yards to give Liverpool an early lead.
His second came six minutes into the second half when Steve Heighway laid the ball square to him on the edge on the box and he planted a sumptuous right foot drive into the top corner and the pièce de résistance was his hat-trick goal ten minutes from time when, after starting the move which saw Phil Neal play Heighway into space down the right, Souness backed up the play and was in the right position on the edge of the box when the winger’s cross fell to him to unleash an absolute rocket which flew past bewildered keeper Georgi Velinov who in BBC commentator Barry Davies’s words “never saw it”.
Souness was part of the injury-hit side in the second leg of the semi final against Bayern Munich which defied the odds after a goalless draw at Anfield to gain the score draw needed to reach the final and his street-smarts proved invaluable in the dour final against Real Madrid in Paris won by Alan Kennedy’s 82nd-minute strike.
“They were cynical with a capital C”, he told Planet Football.
“Their mission was to kick you off the park and they would pull your shirt, stamp on your toes, spit at you, pull your hair, do anything to knock you out of your stride. Getting around that was as big a challenge against Real Madrid in the 1981 final as overcoming them in a sporting contest in Paris.
“Like with Bruges, they made sure it wasn’t a good game, but Alan Kennedy scored our winning goal near the end and a team that loved winning had another trophy.”
Souness by this stage was clearly one of the chief lieutenants Paisley had determined to rebuild his side around but, with the introduction of young future stars like Ronnie Whelan, Ian Rush, Bruce Grobbelaar, Sammy Lee and Mark Lawrenson inevitably having an impact on results, the first half of the 1981/82 campaign saw similar struggles to the previous season with a 3-1 Boxing Day defeat at home to Manchester City leaving the Reds 12th in the First Division and critics claiming their era of dominance was at an end.
It led to Paisley replacing Phil Thompson as captain with Souness and ultimately had the desired effect with Liverpool winning 19 of their next 20 league games to become champions again while also retaining the League Cup.
But it left a deep resentment with the Kirkby- born defender who only months earlier had lifted the European Cup for his boyhood club and felt Souness, who it was known had a close relationship with Paisley and would regularly see him away from the training ground as he took his children to school close to a garage in West Derby where a friend of the manager’s owned a garage that he stopped off at most mornings on the way to training to have a cup of tea and discuss the day’s racing tips.
Souness said in his 1999 autobiography and detailed by the Athletic that he believed Thompson’s attitude towards him changed following the 1981 pre-season tour to Ireland when late into a private function where trays of beer were supplied on the club’s account, Thompson suggested the Scot had married his first wife for money and he responded by throwing a pint of lager over him as well as a punch with the pair being separated by team-mates without the-then captain being able to retaliate.
He claimed he was surprised to be offered the job ahead of more senior player he believed to be ahead of him in the pecking order, telling Sky Sports years later, “When the manager asked me to become captain in ’81, my initial reaction was that I would love to but that there were two people in front of me.
“There was Kenny, who was a couple of years older than me and had been there longer than me, and Phil Neal, who was also older than me and more experienced
“I didn’t want to upset the others, but Bob said it wasn’t a problem. He wanted me to be his captain and that was that.
“I didn’t do anything differently when I was captain. It wasn’t a case becoming more verbal, because I already was.
“The message from Bob, Joe and Ronnie was to do my job first and foremost, and if it wasn't going well for my mate, then help him. I can remember Joe saying that to me more than once. Help your mate.
“I don’t think it made me a different player being captain, but it was a terrific honour. I look at some of the players who have captained that football club and I know I was lucky to do that. Equally important was that Bob had seen me around the place and seen the way I was on the pitch and then come to the decision to give it to me. I’m extremely proud of that.”
With Thompson’s playing career beginning to draw to a close, the uneasy truce with Souness did not cause any immediate further issues, although would rise to the surface a decade later, and the trophies kept rolling in as the new captain effortlessly slipped into his new role.
His first full season with the armband saw the league retained at a canter and the League Cup won for a third successive year with Souness touchingly sending Paisley, in his final season as manager, up the Wembley steps to receive the trophy following extra-time victory over Manchester United before in 1983/84, with Joe Fagan now having stepped up from the Boot Room to take over as manager, the Scot led Liverpool to the club’s first ever Treble.
After falling short in 1978 and 1981, the Reds won a hat-trick of league championships emulating the feat only previously achieved by Arsenal and Huddersfield Town in the inter-war years, with the League Cup being retained for a fourth consecutive year, Souness himself scoring the only goal in the replayed final against Merseyside rivals Everton at Maine Road, Manchester with a superbly-improvised volley.
But the crowning glory came in Rome in what would prove to be Souness’s final match playing for Liverpool as the European Cup returned to Anfield for the fourth time in seven seasons.
The Reds’ run to the final had been built on a series of sterling performances away from home with away legs at Odense of Denmark, Spanish champions Athletic Bilbao, Portuguese giants Benfica and Romanians Dinamo Bucharest all having been won, the semi-final second leg in Bucharest providing one of the most iconic of Souness tales.
During the Anfield first leg in which Sammy Lee’s first half header gave Liverpool a slender advantage, Souness had been involved in an incident with the visitors’ captain Lica Movila that left the Romanian with a broken jaw in two places and, having described them “the nastiest, most physical team I have played against” he recalled years later, “Movila was the worst of the lot.
“He kicked everything that moved and three times caught me with punches off the ball. I went completely crazy when he came in late and high yet again and as he half turned I let loose with the best punch I have delivered in my life.
“I felt nothing at all for him as he was helped off but later when I was told of the extent of the injuries, I was full of remorse. I meant no real harm other than to warn him he had picked the wrong person to intimidate.”
It was clear the Romanians would be seeking revenge even before they left Anfield that night with Ronnie Moran having to step in to prevent members of their entourage making their views known over what had happened on the pitch with the Liverpool skipper.
“At the end of the game at Anfield, I went off the pitch and started climbing the stairs. As I'm going up the stairs I can see guy”, Souness said.
"He's broken his jaw, he's got ice packed into a towel and he's got it tied around his head. And I'm obviously chuckling at him. These two big guys in long leather coats appear from nowhere and start making their way towards me, up the stairs.
“From nowhere, Ronnie appears. He was a great, big powerful man, Ronnie, with a massive chest. He said to them 'Okay then, what are you going to do about it?' with some blue language thrown at them and they thought twice about confronting me.
"I was forever grateful for Ronnie preventing me from getting a back-hander that night.”
There was still the second leg in Bucharest to negotiate in front of a hostile 80,000 crowd and on arrival Souness was left under no illusions of the reception awaiting him with local police reportedly gesturing to him at the airport he might expect to have his eyes gouged out and there was no let-up in the rain-soaked 23 August Stadium when he led the Reds out to warm up.
“I was greeted by a chorus of boos every time I touched the ball in the warm-up”, he said.
“I thought I would give the fans some value for their money and did a bit of ball juggling. That really made them hysterical.”
Enjoying the boos, Souness proceeding to wind them up further by dummying the next few passes played to him before doing real damage to the hosts’ hopes when the action got underway by creating the opening goal inside 12 minutes with a cute pass for star striker Rush - who would score a club record 47 in all competitions that season - to clip home the crucial away goal which meant Bucharest now needed to score three times to reach the final.
Costel Orac got one of them with a free kick shortly before half time but Liverpool’s experience and desire to put right the previous two season’s surprise quarter-final exits to CSKA Sofia and Poles Widzew Lodz comfortably kept the hosts at bay and when Rush capitalised on a defensive error with six minutes left to restore the Reds’ two-goal aggregate advantage, Souness knew he would be leading his side out in Rome despite the Romanians’ concerted efforts at retribution having left their mark.
“The tackles became progressively worse, going from shin to knee to thigh. My socks were in shreds and one shin pad was split from top to bottom.”
It was in some ways ideal preparation for the task still awaiting Souness and Liverpool - a European Cup final against AS Roma on their own Stadio Olimpico ground in Rome, the very same venue where the Reds had first been crowned kings of Europe seven years earlier.
The balance of Fagan’s famously laid-back approach and Souness’ fearless demeanour was reflected throughout a team hard-wired to success and with the Rome showdown not scheduled until the very end of May, Liverpool enjoyed a week’s ‘relaxation’ in Tel Aviv before travelling to Italy.
“It was supposed to help us acclimatise to the more humid weather in Rome,” remembered Michael Robinson, one of Souness’ closest friends during his brief spell at Anfield.
“Instead, the trip was in essence a major p***-up, and Joe [Fagan] gave Graeme a wad of money to take us all out to forget about the final that was looming.
“Meanwhile, the Roma players were stuck in the Dolomites contemplating the game and getting wound up.”
Liverpool’s boozy antics made for some lurid and optimistic headlines in the Rome sporting press but enabled batteries to be charged after a long season ahead of what would be the Reds’ 67th and final fixture and allowed them to enter the proverbial lions’ den rested and ready for business.
“It was like the Christians being fed to the lions,” Robinson admitted.
“There were banners outside specially welcoming the English infidels. But it never crossed my mind that we’d lose. We were brainwashed into believing we’d win. Graeme was a Trojan that night. Every player on the pitch was in awe of him. He was brave and magnificent, and led the team like a warrior. Roma had Falcao and Cerezo – two fantastic Brazilian players in midfield. But I forgot they were playing, because of Graeme’s performance.”
Souness’s indomitable presence was evident from the moment he led his side out onto the pitch with tracksuit top open and, although Roberto Pruzzo’s 44th minute header cancelled out Phil Neal’s 14th minute opener, the captain's commanding performance in the middle of the park ensured Liverpool more than held their own in an unprecedentedly hostile environment to take the match to extra time and penalties, the first time Europe’s showpiece occasion would be decided by a shoot-out.
Souness’s final strike of a ball for Liverpool was a spot kick arrogantly driven with the outside of his boot into the top corner and, after Grobbelaar’s famous ‘wobbly legs’ helped induce Italian World Cup winners Bruno Conti and Francesco Graziani to blaze over the crossbar, Alan Kennedy stepped up only three years after his Paris winner to seal the Reds’ fourth European Cup victory, the captain’s one-handed lift of the trophy with the other raised in triumphant salute towards the 15,000 Liverpudlians in the Curva Nord a fitting symbol of one of the club’s greatest nights.
Souness later acknowledged he had given his greatest performance in his 359th and final game in the red shirt, saying, “It felt like we’d gone to the Coliseum and sacked the place.
“Nobody gave us a chance. But we had the most ridiculous inner belief. Had it been Barcelona in the Nou Camp or Real Madrid in the Bernabéu, we’d have done what we had to do to win the game and done a number on them.”
At 31 he stood at the peak of the game and decided the time was right to move abroad, returning to Italy and the northern port of Genoa barely a month after conquering Rome to join Sampdoria for £650,000.
“When I left Liverpool for Sampdoria in ’84, Serie A was like the Premier League is now”, he reasoned years later.
“The big money was there and the top players in the world were gathering there.
“Nobody forced me out but Liverpool figured they’d had seven years of great service out of me and were more than doubling their money for a player who had peaked. It was ruthless business.
“I can’t say I regret going to Italy because it was a wonderful experience. But as you can imagine, leaving Liverpool after seven years of non-stop success was difficult.”
The parting of ways arguably proved more difficult initially for Liverpool than Souness as the near-impossible task of replacing him in midfield coupled with Everton’s rise to power under Howard Kendall saw a first trophy-less season at Anfield since 1975.
Sampdoria, not one of Italy’s traditional powerhouses whose sole Serie A title came long after Souness in 1991, had returned to the top division and now financed by oil businessman Paolo Mantovani had already brought in stars like England striker Trevor Francis to play alongside Liverpool’s European Cup winning captain. With youngsters like Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Mancini emerging they were on the rise and would win their first ever Coppa Italia in 1984/85 after a fourth place league finish, Souness scoring the only goal of the San Siro first leg before a 2-1 win at home.
They would drop to 11th the following campaign by which time Souness had already accepted an offer to become player-manager of the team he supported as a boy, Rangers, in April 1986.
The Glasgow giants had not won the league in nine seasons but Souness’s arrival ushered in a new era of success at Ibrox and, despite him being sent off 36 minutes into his debut away to Hibs, the new manager delivered the title and a League Cup in his first campaign in charge.
Financed initially by the club’s then owner Lawrence Marlborough and then David Murray who he helped take over the club in 1988, Souness’s fearless approach as a player was equally as evident as a manager, reversing the trend of players moving south by bringing in a number of English players now Rangers could offer the lure European football with Scottish clubs unaffected by the Heysel ban.
His single-minded pursuit of success also cut through Glasgow’s sectarian divide when he signed Rangers’s first ever Catholic player after controversially bringing in Maurice Johnston despite the forward having initially agreed to return to Parkhead, Souness also signing the club’s first black player in 50 years when English winger Mark Walters arrived from Aston Villa.
Three league titles and four league cups had firmly established him as one of Britain’s top young managers by the time Liverpool found themselves looking for a replacement for Kenny Dalglish after the Scot’s shock resignation in February 1991.
Having taken over as player-manager in the wake of the horror of Heysel in May 1985, Dalglish supreme powers as a player translated almost instantly to management and he led Liverpool to only the third league and FA Cup double that century in his first campaign in charge adding two more championships as well as the FA Cup in 1989.
That year however saw what would ultimately become 97 Liverpool supporters unlawfully killed in Europe’s worst sporting disaster at Hillsborough and, having led his club and the city through the darkest of times, the lingering strain of what had happened along with continued pressure (much of which Dalglish admitted was self-imposed) to be successful began to affect his health, and he stunned the world of football by standing down two days after a dramatic 4-4 FA Cup fifth round replay with Merseyside neighbours Everton at Goodison Park.
Club secretary Peter Robinson made initial contact with Souness, who two years earlier had reportedly agreed to become Manchester United manager if Michael Knighton’s doomed takeover at Old Trafford had gone through, to see if he would be interested in returning to Anfield but, having heard the Liverpool board’s preference was to appoint from within, the Scot hesitated and Ronnie Moran continued in caretaker charge.
Souness’s close relationship with Rangers chairman David Murray, who he lived close to and socialised regularly with, had seen him offered a job for life at Ibrox but continued run-ins with the Scottish football authorities - he was the middle of a long touchline ban in spring 1991 and an incident with a tea-lady at St Johnstone almost caused a fight with the Saints’ chairman - along with lure of Anfield and the end of the European ban on English clubs precipitated a rethink.
Souness called Robinson back towards the end of March and, despite Murray making a last-ditch attempt to persuade him to stay by offering a blank contract he could fill in himself and warning returning to Liverpool would be huge mistake, he was unveiled at Anfield as Dalglish’s successor on 16 April 1991.
He brought Rangers first-team coach and former Liverpool midfielder Phil Boersma with him and also wanted his assistant Walter Smith to move south with him but the future Everton manager decided against it and succeeded Souness in the Ibrox hot-seat.
“I took the only job that I would have considered leaving Rangers for, which was the Liverpool one”, he explained years later.
“I should have realised that I would have been offered that job further down the line. I believe it was the right job, but the wrong time for me to take it.
“Remember, I was still only 38. I should have sat back and enjoyed the success at Rangers for a little while, but I didn’t do that and I regret it.”
Although Liverpool’s form had dipped following Dalglish’s departure and put Arsenal in pole position to regain the league title they had won at Anfield in 1989, victories in Souness’s first two matches in charge at home to Norwich and Crystal Palace briefly raised hopes the Gunners could yet be caught but defeats at Chelsea and Nottingham Forest soon ended them, confirming a first trophy-less season for the Reds since the one following the new manager’s departure as a player.
Peter Robinson and long-time youth development officer Tom Saunders had warned Souness of the scale of the challenge facing him at Anfield, with an ageing squad in need of rebuilding and the prospect - with the advent of Premier League a little over twelve months away - of clubs like Manchester United fulfilling their business potential in the coming new financial landscape were to be married with success on the pitch.
The Liverpool board immediately gave the new manager major backing in the market, breaking the British transfer record in the summer of 1991 by bringing in Welsh striker Dean Saunders for £2.9m from Derby County as well as the Rams’ England centre back Mark Wright for £2.2m along with Rangers winger Mark Walters who came south to join his former boss at Anfield for £1.5m.
What would prove arguably as significant to Souness’s era was his decision to take charge of negotiating players’ contracts.
Since the Shankly years, an effective system had been in place where Robinson would enter discussions with a lower offer than player expected, the manager would then take over and promise to talk Robinson into upping his offer to what Liverpool would expect to be paying anyway and the player would feel his boss had got him a better deal thus strengthening their relationship.
But with Robinson increasingly uncomfortable with the skyrocketing sums of money involved, he offered the task to Souness who was used to having such an over-arching influence at Rangers and accepted.
With many of the senior players in the squad like Rush, Whelan, Grobbelaar and Nicol having been former team-mates of the new manager during his playing days at Anfield and keen to secure potentially their last big contracts while eyeing the huge amounts of cash about to flood into the game, it added an extra strain to the dressing room dynamic particularly when some of them began to feel the new big money signings on big wages were not of the same standard as their predecessors.
“Initially, I thought it was Peter’s way of paying me a compliment but it was my first big mistake, agreeing to it,” Souness later accepted.
“I couldn’t understand why anyone would grumble with being paid what I thought was a decent sum to play for Liverpool. Whatever I offered, they always wanted more. Liverpool was the only team I wanted to play for and I would have stayed forever had the club not accepted a really good offer from Sampdoria for me. There was no place I’d rather have been.”
His first full season in charge started brightly enough with three wins in the first five league games including a 3-1 Anfield derby victory over Everton putting the Reds second, record-buy Saunders recovering from an initially slow start to bang in four as Liverpool marked their return to Europe after the six-year Heysel ban with a 6-1 victory over Finnish minnows Kuusysi Lahti in the first round of the UEFA Cup.
The following round saw the Reds pull back a two-goal first leg European deficit for the first time in the club’s history with a memorable triumph over French side Auxerre but inconsistent league form had already seen them drop to mid-table and an embarrassing League Cup exit at Third Division Peterborough United highlighted the side’s fragility.
A ten-game unbeaten run over Christmas and New Year put Liverpool back into the fringes of the title race by the end of January but only two more league wins by the start of April left the Reds well adrift of pace-setters Manchester United and Leeds United and, following a UEFA Cup quarter-final defeat to Italians Genoa, the season rested on progress in the FA Cup where, after needing replays to get past Second Division Bristol Rovers and Ipswich, Souness’s side beat Aston Villa at home in the quarter-finals to set up a semi-final with another second tier side, Portsmouth, at Highbury.
After 90 minutes of stalemate, Darren Anderton’s goal early in the second period of extra time meant another humiliating cup exit loomed until three minutes from time when Ronnie Whelan followed in a John Barnes free kick which hit the post and rolled along the goalline to force a replay at Villa Park.
Liverpool would reach Wembley after another stalemate and a penalty shoot-out but by then Souness was recovering in hospital after it was announced the day after the match at Highbury he required an immediate triple heart bypass, a situation which led to the gross misjudgement that in the eyes of some should have seen him sacked immediately and will forever overshadow his many other achievements for the club.
In the aftermath of the semi-final replay victory over Portsmouth, Souness had allowed himself to be pictured kissing his then-girlfriend Karen Levy on the front page of the S*n newspaper, then as it still is now boycotted on Merseyside and far beyond after the repugnant and unfounded lies it printed about Liverpool supporters after Hillsborough.
Under the banner headline ‘Lover-pool’, the picture was taken before the Villa Park tie on the condition it would only be printed if Liverpool reached Wembley but, with the match having gone to extra-time and penalties, fell too late for print deadlines and was published the following day, 15 April 1992, the third anniversary of the disaster.
Souness had a working relationship with the S*n’s Merseyside reporter Mike Ellis, who eventually wrote his second autobiography in 1999 and still had access at the time, Liverpool not banning the newspaper until much later in 2017.
The initial story of his hospital ordeal was published in the S*n the week after the match at Highbury without much reaction, Souness later pointing out the likes of Ian Rush and Tommy Smith had public dealings with the newspaper before him and after Hillsborough without any public fall-out.
But Ellis being on holiday the week beginning Monday 13 April was significant, Souness said, as had the paper’s local correspondent been at work his understanding of the situation would have prevented the second story being printed on the anniversary of the disaster.
“There were a series of circumstances that led to it being printed that day and he was the one person who could have said to the newspaper’s office, you just can’t do that”, Souness claimed.
“I accept I made one almighty rick by doing an exclusive with them.
“The thing that really killed me, and makes me sad today is that the last thing I want to do is upset any Liverpool supporter – especially the people damaged by Hillsborough – in whatever shape or form.”
Souness said he gave all the proceeds of his fee for the story to Alder Hey children’s hospital and claimed, having been up in Scotland at the time of the disaster, he did not appreciate the strength of feeling which still existed against the S*n although it later emerged he had written to a Liverpool shareholder the previous year giving assurances his players would be instructed not to deal with the reviled tabloid.
Some Liverpool supporters vowed not to attend matches again until he was replaced as manager and, while the club took no action, Souness later admitted he should have resigned.
“I have nobody to blame but myself. I knew I’d got it wrong. Ignorance is no excuse.
“I will regret the decision forever. I don’t have a defence.
“What I really should have done is resigned. It looked terrible, me smiling and confident of a recovery on the same day a lot of people were still mourning.
“There is no one who hurts more than me whenever the Hillsborough thing is mentioned.
“It hurts me because I had a great time as a player at Liverpool and I’d like to think I had a great relationship with the supporters at the time, and it hurts me.
“So I hold my hands up. I’m still a Liverpool supporter. They are still my team.
“I can only apologise and it’s something I have to live with.”
He returned to the bench at Wembley, pale and gaunt and with a doctor by his side, to watch his team beat Second Division Sunderland 2-0 in the FA Cup final with Liverpool having finished sixth - their lowest league placing since 1965 - in the final First Division table.
In his absence, Souness’s side had played a significant role in the destination of the title after beating Manchester United - favourites for much of the campaign to end a 25-year championship drought until a string of defeats in the closing weeks - 2-0 in late April to ensure Howard Wilkinson’s Leeds United would finish on top, an afternoon which would have further consequences behind the scenes at Anfield.
After finishing his playing career at Sheffield United, Phil Thompson had returned to Liverpool in 1986 to join Kenny Dalglish’s backroom staff initially as reserve team manager with the return of his old nemesis as manager in 1991 initially being handled smoothly, Souness assuring the former European Cup winning captain he saw him fulfilling a Ronnie Moran-type role in his new regime.
But it proved an uneasy truce, staff contract negotiations falling back under Souness’s remit causing friction along with further issues over Thompson’s at times ferocious manner with the club’s young players, who Souness was increasingly having to rely on due to injuries and poor recruitment, and with Academy director Steve Heighway.
Thompson was mooted as potential replacement for Souness as speculation whirled over his health and future as he recovered from his heart operation with claims reaching the recuperating manager the Kirkby-born coach was attempting to ‘promote’ himself in the sudden power vacuum and dominating team talks before games.
When allegations Thompson had bad-mouthed him to Manchester United assistant coach Brian Kidd in the Anfield boardroom following the late April match got back to Souness, he told Peter Robinson he wanted to sack his former team-mate, a decision which was ratified by the club’s board of directors the week after the FA Cup final.
Thompson took the club to an industrial tribunal following his dismissal before reaching an out-of-court settlement, later expanding on what happened from his perspective in his 1999 autobiography ‘Stand Up Pinocchio’.
"The chairman was sitting at the head of the table with Graeme Souness next to him. He said: 'Phil, we have had a discussion and chatted about the situation. We are all in full agreement that we have to back the manager's decision over this.'
"I said: 'Fair enough, but what is the reason for my dismissal?'
"They said: 'We will give it to you in writing.' I said that the reason the manager had given me for my sacking was that I was shouting too much at the younger lads.
"I added that I was not accepting that as the real reason. I said: 'You know and I know that this is personal. It is wider than this and you are not going to tell me.'
Thompson said he only learned twelve months later from former team mates Alan Kennedy and David Johnson that his alleged comments to Manchester United assistant boss Brian Kidd about Souness after United’s April 1992 defeat at Anfield were the supposed real reason for his departure.
"Whether I had said those words about Graeme, I don't know. I was always behind him and supportive of him while I was a coach. Even if I did say those words, surely a rollicking would have been enough. Why did he have to give me the sack?
“It caused me tremendous personal grief and affected all of my family, not least my sons. I always think back to the Monday after being told by Graeme that he wanted me out and having to tell the boys.
"The older one said 'why?' and I said: 'I don't know.' He said: 'Does that mean you won't be going back and coaching the players?' I said: 'No, that is the end of it', and the two of them started crying. They were hugging each other and sobbing and I vowed at that moment never to talk to Graeme Souness ever again.
"Even now my wife Marg says: 'You were good team-mates. Why can't you sit down with him and ask if he got it wrong?'
"I just have these pictures in my mind of my boys being so broken-hearted and the answer is: 'No, never again.’”
With the advent of the new Premier League now at hand, Souness still faced a big task to restore a club whose income was still recovering after six years without European football and facing further redevelopment of Anfield following the completion of the new Centenary Stand in the summer of 1992 to comply with the requirements of the Taylor Report and the move to all-seater stadiums following Hillsborough, while also managing a £7m a year wage bill.
Souness's task was not made easier by the limited success of his initial acquisitions as Liverpool manager and recent UEFA rules limiting only four overseas players - including those from Scotland, Wales and Ireland - to be named in squads for European ties which had a significant impact on his attempts to revamp an ageing squad.
Having sold Peter Beardsley, Gary Gillespie, Steve Staunton and Steve McMahon during his first season in charge, 30-year-old Ray Houghton was transferred to Aston Villa in the summer of 1992 and was soon joined by record buy Dean Saunders sold at a loss despite scoring 23 goals in his one full season at Anfield, the Welshman scoring twice in a 4-2 win over his old club barely a fortnight after his £2.2m move.
New buys like midfielder Paul Stewart from Tottenham, Danish European championship winning defender Torben Piechnik and Hungarian winger Istvan Kozma were not of the same quality as the seasoned campaigners they replaced and Souness’s failure to follow-up potential leads to sign players like Peter Schmeichel, Eric Cantona and Alan Shearer proved fatal in his attempts to build a new squad capable of challenging Manchester United who bounced back from their Anfield heartache of the previous April to win the inaugural Premier League and launch their own era of dominance.
1992/93 saw another sixth place finish but only after improved form towards the end of the campaign with Liverpool a mere three points ahead of the relegation zone in March, the scale of the club’s on-pitch decline being highlighted by a home FA Cup third round replay defeat to third-tier Bolton Wanderers which essentially finished the Reds’ season in mid-January and meant a failure to qualify for Europe for the first time outside of the ban since continental competition was first embarked upon in 1964.
With resentment still festering after his S*n dealings, Souness’s absence from Liverpool’s final fixture of a dismal campaign at home to Tottenham after a week of speculation over his future led to rumours around a jubilant Anfield as the Reds beat Spurs 6-2 that he was about to be replaced as manager but a press conference the following day confirmed he had merely been on a scouting mission (believed to be Coventry winger Peter Ndlovu), with chairman David Moores - who in the wake of the cup defeat to Bolton had described the club’s position as “totally unacceptable” - confirming the Scot, still with three years remaining on his contract, would be continuing in charge with Roy Evans now promoted from within as his new assistant.
The Liverpool board were not unanimous with director Tony Ensor resigning in protest he said at the decision to keep Souness on but Moores denied anyone had been considered as a replacement and expressed the hope his manager would stay beyond the length of his current deal.
"The past few days at Anfield have probably been the most difficult in the club's history”, Moores said.
"It has created a furore and we fully understand why. We have always tried to have excellent relations with the media and to be as open and helpful as possible."
"But this time we had to keep our mouths and doors shut until it was sorted out."
"Now it is sorted out and I am pleased to announce that Graeme will be remaining as manager of Liverpool for the three years of his contract - and I hope for much longer."
Souness expressed his relief at the speculation over his future being brought to a close and his belief that he could still be successful as Liverpool manager.
"I am relieved and delighted. It has been a very stressful week for myself, for this club and for the families of people sitting around this table."
"At no time have I wanted to leave. I would like to serve out my contract and be awarded another.
"I had been to a board meeting and there were several things said which made me doubt if I had the support of all of the board. There is no problem whatever between myself and any member of the board.
"I came here two years ago because of the feeling I have for this club and the pull of this place. I know how successful this club has been and I knew that before I took the job the standards have been set here. It was always going to be difficult to follow in the footsteps of my predecessors.
"I'm hurt that we didn't win something this year. It hurts me far more than anyone else. This has not been an experience I've enjoyed, but you are stronger for it.
"I can't wait for the new season. I know we've just finished, but I wish next season was starting tomorrow."
By the time the new campaign did begin in August, Souness had again been backed in the transfer market with the £2.5m arrival of Spurs defender Neil Ruddock and £2.25m signing of Nottingham Forest's Nigel Clough, the Reds going top after winning their opening three matches against Sheffield Wednesday, Queens Park Rangers and newly-promoted Swindon Town.
But five defeats in the next six, including an abject 2-0 defeat at Goodison Park to an Everton side who would only survive relegation by the skin of their teeth on the final day of the season, brought back the dark clouds with supporters further perplexed and concerned at manager’s eye for a player following his decision to allow promising youngster Mike Marsh and full back David Burrows to join West Ham in exchange for full back Julian Dicks the day before the Reds’ derby collapse.
The emergence of Toxteth- born 18-year-old scoring sensation Robbie Fowler, alongside fellow youngsters like Steve McManaman, Jamie Redknapp, Rob Jones and Don Hutchison who Souness had increasingly been forced to rely on due to the inadequacies of many of his signings and seemingly-constant injury crises, offered a glimmer of hope at times.
Liverpudlians weaned on decades of success however were under no illusions how far off the leading pack - with Blackburn Rovers, funded by local steel magnate Jack Walker and now managed by Kenny Dalglish, United’s closest rivals - their heroes had fallen and 1993 ended with a home draw with Wimbledon, who earlier that same month had knocked the Reds out of the League Cup, leaving Souness’s side eighth in the Premier League and already 20 points off Ferguson’s men in top spot.
United were the next visitors to Anfield in the opening week of 1994 and were stunned when, having raced into a three-goal lead inside 23 minutes, Liverpool - roared on by an indignant Spion Kop in its final season as a terrace - fought back to snatch an unlikely draw.
It proved little more than a fleeting show of defiance though and when three weeks later second-tier Bristol City won an FA Cup third round replay at Anfield to end Liverpool’s season in January for the second year running it was the final straw, Souness himself realising the jig was up even before the match against the West Country side when in the city centre Moat House Hotel having his pre-match tea and toast he could hear Robins’ boss Russell Osman holding his team meeting in the next room.
“He had seen enough of us in the first game at Ashton Gate to tell his players that if they matched us for effort we’d bottle it in front of our own supporters. I knew he was right. This was coming from Bristol City in the old Second Division.”
Souness tendered his resignation to David Moores and Peter Robinson, with Moores calling it a “very sad day for everyone at Anfield” as the club released a statement on the departing manager’s behalf which read, “After a great deal of soul searching I have reached the conclusion that the best thing for the club and I is that we should part company."
"I took this job believing that I could return the club to its former glory but this proved to be more difficult than I anticipated. The fans have been very patient but I feel that their patience is now running out. Liverpool Football Club has, and always will have, a very special place in my heart and I can only wish the club well and every success in the future. I wish to thank the chairman, the board and everyone else associated with the club for their help and support which they have given me during my term as manager."
Roy Evans, promoted to assistant manager the previous summer, took over as a manager as Liverpool looked to go back to basics with a man David Moores labelled the ‘last of the Boot Room boys’.
Souness took some time out of football to lick his wounds and admitted with hindsight he would have done things differently.
“I lost the dressing room and that hurt me, because it started with some of the players I’d worked with and looked after as young boys,” he said.
“I was disappointed in a lot of people but I was far from blameless. I went into Liverpool probably believing I knew everything there was to know about management because I’d been successful elsewhere. The setback at Spurs served me well for the rest of my playing career but that was 20 years earlier and as a manager it felt like I could win everything in a rush.
“I’m not blaming anybody but myself, because if I did it again now, I’d do a lot differently. I would hate to think this is coming across as me not holding my hands up.”
He returned to football as manager with Turkish club Galatasaray in June 1995 where he showed his appetite for confrontation had not waned by nearly sparking a riot after placing a large Galatasaray flag into the centre circle of the pitch of arch rivals Fenerbahce after beating them in the Turkish cup final.
After a spell in charge of Southampton, Souness managed abroad again taking charge of Torino in Italy and Benfica in Portugal before returning to the Premier League with four years in charge of Blackburn Rovers, where he won the League Cup in 2002, and 18 months as Bobby Robson’s successor at Newcastle before embarking on a career as television pundit.
His place in the Liverpool pantheon remains an ambiguous one and open to debate depending on the perspective.
There are some who believe the circumstances surrounding his dalliances with the S*n are unforgivable and will forever tarnish everything else he did at Liverpool while others, some of whom still hold strident views over that incident and that newspaper, cannot forget the commanding leadership and imperious football he treated them to during arguably the club’s most dominant ever period.
Speaking about his time at Liverpool in a candid interview with Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football in 2018, an emotional Souness opened up about his biggest regrets and why certain perceptions still hurt him badly.
“It was a job that I was always going to be offered and I took it at the wrong time.
“I thought I would go in there and change it. The one thing I learnt going to Italy was there's no real change in how the game should be played, but how players look after themselves. I was one of the chaps when it came to enjoying myself, and I tried to change that, and it was very easy when I went to Rangers to change that because that was a team that hadn't won the league in nine years.
“Then when I go to Liverpool and say I don't want to see fish and chips after the game and I don't want to see lager under the seats on the bus for the way back, the response you would get would be 'we have always done that'. It was very hard for me to argue that because I had been part of that culture.
“I made many mistakes and my biggest crime was trying to make the changes too quickly.
“Liverpool will always be the place I look back in terms of the place where I enjoyed playing, it was just unique. The dressing room - if you are winning every week it's very easy to have a great dressing room - but we went through hiccups and had a real bond. Liverpool will always be a very special place to me.
“There are things that happened there when I was manager which I deeply regret but I can't turn back the clock, how I wish I could, but I can't, and that hurts me badly, that I am perceived by some people to be something I'm not.”
*A version of this article was first published in January 2022.
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