Happy Birthday Graeme Souness!

Happy Birthday to former Liverpool player and manager Graeme Souness! Born in Edinburgh, Scotland Souness attracted attention after appearing in Tottenham Hotspur youth side and had a great run in the FA Cup. He approached manager Bill Nicholson’s door and asked to be involved with the first team, the manager disagreed and Souness found himself back in Scotland. He played ten games in North America for Montreal Olympique before Tottenham sold him to Middlesbrough in 1973 for £30,000. The only game Souness played for Tottenham’s first team was a European match against Keflavik. Liverpool bought Souness for £352,000 which was a transfer record between English clubs, £2,000 more than Manchester United paid for Lees’ Joe Jordan a week earlier. “That first day at Anfield was a revelation”. His first goal for the club was voted BBC’s Goal of the season. He was in and out of the side but he had a good end to the season when he was the one to assist Dalglish in scoring the winner in the European Cup final. His debut season was a dream, “The nearest I had been to European competition before was watching Eurovision”. He became the driving force in the midfield and controlled the play with Terry McDermott when Liverpool won the title in 1979 and 1980. He netted a hat-trick against CSKA Sofia in the quarter-finals on their way to another European triumph. In December 1981, Souness took over the role of captain from Phil Thompson. The 1984 season turned out to be his last for the club, we won the league title for a third year in a row and he said his goodbye in style by securing the League cup against Everton with a shot from outside the penalty area and came second in the PFA Player of the year voting. The Reds reached their fourth European Cup final by winning every away-leg. The European cup final turned out to be Souness’ farewell Liverpool appearance and he left on a high. He moved to Sampadoria the following season and received a warm welcome in Italy. He helped the club win the Italian Cup and scored in the final. After two successful years in Italy, he returned to Scotland to become player-manager at Glasgow Rangers. He was a remarkable player and deserves to be remembered as one of the greatest players to ever wear the Liverpool shirt. He made 359 appearances for the club and scored 55 goals and during his career he won five League Championships, three European Cups and one FA Cup as a manager. Article By Lauren Black -@LaurenBlack9 For more Redmen TV content including podcasts, subscriber exclusives and three new shows every week subscribe now and get your first month for FREE bit.ly/RMTVjoin