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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Ewan Paton

Watch as Rangers hero Graeme Souness recreates iconic Galatasaray celebration

It was 27 years ago when Graeme Souness famously planted a Galatasaray flag in the centre circle of arch-rivals Fenerbahce's pitch.

The Rangers legend waved the huge yellow and red flag around as he paraded around the field of play at full time during his side's derby win celebrations in the 1996 Turkish Cup final.

It was an iconic moment that went down in history, and very nearly caused a riot between Turkish football's two biggest teams.

Now, nearly three decades on, Souness was back in Turkieye to wave the exact same flag.

The 70-year-old led former side Galatasaray's title celebrations against Fenerbahce in a similar fashion.

He was a guest at the Nef Stadium, as Galatasaray thumped their rivals 3-0.

And he helped celebrate with the current team just like he did way back in the 90s.

A clip shared on social media by Galatasaray shows the former Sky Sports pundit waving the huge flag, bearing the club's colours, around the pitch.

The accompanied the tweet with: "Ulubatlı Souness."

Since the initial incident in the 1995/96 campaign, Souness has since admitted that he did it to get back at an unnamed Fenerbahce chief.

He explained the motives in an interview with Sky Sports. He said: "One of their [Fenerbahce's] vice-presidents had said 'what are Galatasaray doing signing a cripple?', he was referring to the open-heart surgery I had.

"So we play them nine months later in the cup final, a two-legged cup final - we won the first game in our stadium 1-0, lose the second game 1-0 after ninety minutes. It goes to extra time, Dean Saunders - a really good player and great striker of the ball, before he's actually made contact with it I am up off my seat knowing he's going to score.

"We win the trophy and after the game, all of our players ran down to one end where our supporters were and that great big flag was handed over. All the players took turns to wave it and then it was my turn, I give it a few waves and then turned to hand it to someone.

"They [the players] had all run off to the halfway line, so I am now jogging back up to the halfway line with this flag and I look into the emptying stands and I can see this guy's face who called me a cripple.

"As a sort of, 'I'll show you who's a cripple' I ran off to the centre of the pitch, got the flag in and turned round and I realised, all the supporters now climbing over the fence and I'm thinking 'maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

"I get underneath the perspex shields of the police and I am in the tunnel saying to myself 'cor, got away with that one' and just as I thought that I got clumped round the side of the head by a supporter who had got into the tunnel."

The Insider newsletter is the latest move by the team at the Rangers Review to bring content directly to you. We already have accounts on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Tik Tok and Instagram but we will also send exclusive bespoke opinion pieces every day at 5pm direct to your email. Not only will you receive this piece from one of our team of Joshua Barrie, Derek Clark or Jonny McFarlane but you will also get our list of the best content published in the last 24 hours. It's a handy way to keep abreast of what's going on amid all the noise surrounding Scotland's most successful club. You can sign up in five seconds with just an email address here.

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