career: an ill-advised exclusive interview with
The Sun, a newspaper reviled for its coverage
of Hillsborough. It was published on the third
anniversary of the disaster. “My biggest regret,”
he admits. It soured his relationship with fans
and affected his status as a club legend.
A parting of the ways became inevitable.
“I was only 38 when I got the Liverpool job,”
he says, reflecting on his time in the dugout.
“I made too many changes too soon.”
A series of management jobs followed – at
Galatasaray, Southampton, Torino, Benfica,
Blackburn and Newcastle – but Souness was
never able to replicate his success at Ibrox.
In retrospect, he wonders if all the lessons he
learnt from the Boot Room boys in his early
days as a player on Merseyside held him back.
“I only ever went on one coaching course,
after I was sacked at Newcastle,” he reveals.
“I took one thing from it: ‘Revisit, revisit, revisit’.
You’d get told twice at Liverpool. I didn’t have
that quality of player and tried to use Liverpool
rules. Some players need telling every week.
“It was an area I got wrong, because I wasn’t
prepared to tell them over and over again. I’d
tell them, show them, but they’d keep making
the same mistakes. That was an issue for me.
Top players don’t need to be told every week.
Maybe I got it wrong.”
Even in his mid-60s, Souness still looks fit
enough to get out on a pitch. He’d probably
improve a number of Premier League sides.
“Would I like to play now? I’d like to play any
time,” he smiles. “It goes too quickly. When
you’re in the middle of it, you think it will keep
going on forever.”
And the Scot has little patience with those
who claim players of his era would struggle in
today’s game.
“The great players would be great any time,
whether they were from the ’50s or the ’80s,”
he insists. “There’s only ever a handful of top
men. That never changes. Those players could
do it any time.”
Souness would have enjoyed playing for the
modern Liverpool and Manchester City sides,
and would relish the playing surfaces.
“The game’s changed in two ways,” he says.
“The pitches were a real leveller when I played.
Some of them were terrible. You try moving
the ball and playing one- or two-touch football
on those pitches. You needed great technique.”
Law changes have made things easier for
flair players, too. “The rules are very different,”
he adds. “When we were in the dressing room,
we knew the opposition were saying, ‘Let’s put
a few on their arses and try to knock them off
their game’. Take May’s FA Cup final – Watford
couldn’t take that approach to City. Try playing
tippy-tappy football when someone’s trying to
chop you in half...
“The question should be: ‘Who today could
have played in our generation?’ The best could
do it in any era, but the game’s full of kidders
now and they wouldn’t have got away with it.”
Such punchy opinions litter his every punditry
appearance, his disdain for players who don’t
live up to his standards making great viewing.
“I had zero training as a pundit,” he says. “Asplayers we were told not to mix with the press,
even though we’d often have drinking sessions
with the local reporters on Sundays. Now I’ve
crossed the fence, I think access is terrible. I’d
like to see players put more back in and help
the people who gave them the wealth.”
Souness is as watchable on the small screen
as he was as a player. On the pitch or in the
studio, Champagne Charlie has always been
the alpha male.“REVIE’S BUnCH OF ASSASSInS
AT LEEDS WERE BAD EnOUGH, BUT
THERE’S A STREAK In SOUnESS
THAT PUTS HIM TOP OF THE LIST”
VIn TAGE CHAMPAGnE
THE TRENDSETTER
THE BOOKWORM
THE COWBOY
THE GUVNOR
THE BEACH BUM
THEPRIVATEDETECTIVE
GRAEME
SOUn ESSAbove Souness had
no trouble taking his
no-nonsense nature
from touchline to TVTONY EVANS is a former
football editor of The Times,
and the author of ‘Two Tribes’,
‘Far Foreign Land’ and ‘I Don’t
Know What It Is But I Love It’60 September 2019 FourFourTwo