Graeme James Souness (born Edinburgh, Scotland, 6 May, 1953) was the captain of the all-conquering Liverpool F.C. football team of the early 1980s who later returned to the club as manager.

"Souey" is currently employed as an analyst on Ireland's RTÉ, having been dismissed as manager of the English Premier League side Newcastle United F.C. on 2 February, 2006 following a string of poor results. Souness' dismissal came at a huge cost to Newcastle as he was entitled to compensation for being dismissed.

One of the most committed players of his generation, Souness won five League Championships, three European Cups and four League Cups during seven eventful seasons at Anfield.

He started his career as an apprentice at Tottenham Hotspur under Bill Nicholson but grew impatient at his lack of first team chances even though he was only a teenager, famously telling Nicholson that he thought he was the best player at the club and should be in the first team.

During the summer of 1972, the nineteen-year-old Souness played in the North American Soccer League for the Montreal Olympique. He appeared in 10 of his team’s 14 games, and was named to the league’s first-team All-Star team for that season.

Back in England, Souness had played just once for Spurs prior to a move to Middlesbrough F.C. in 1973 and he became a much-admired and feared, hard-as-nails midfielder who led a strong side over five seasons. In 1974, he won his first cap for Scotland in a 3-0 victory over East Germany.

After winning their first European Cup in 1977, Liverpool decided to seek reinforcements for defending their crown, as well as the League title they'd also just won, and three Scottish players in their 20s were all purchased by manager Bob Paisley over the next six months.

First came Alan Hansen, then Kenny Dalglish, and then finally Souness, who cost £350,000 in January 1978. These three would supply a superb spine in the side for seven glory-filled campaigns to come.

Souness settled in at Anfield quickly as Liverpool stoutly defended their European crown. He didn't feature in their European campaign until the semi-final, but was instrumental in the final at Wembley when his delicate pass set up Dalglish for the only goal of the game against FC Bruges.

That summer, Souness was selected by Ally McLeod for Scotland's squad for the World Cup in Argentina. He had only won six caps by this stage and injury robbed of him of a place in Scotland's first two group games against Peru and Iran.

With a defeat and a draw in his absence, his return was crucial as Scotland chased a victory by three goals or more in their final group match against the Netherlands but a 3-2 victory turned out not to be enough.

The following year Souness picked up his first League title medal as Liverpool coasted to victory and then retained it with equal aplomb in 1980. In 1981, Liverpool lost their League title to Aston Villa F.C. but won their first League Cup and their third European Cup with victory over Real Madrid; Souness scored a hat-trick in the quarter-final against CSKA Sofia.

Paisley decided to move the captaincy that summer and, much to incumbent Phil Thompson's disappointment, he lost the armband to Souness, who duly lifted two trophies the following summer as Liverpool got the League championship back and regained the League Cup. Souness went to the 1982 World Cup in Spain with Scotland and played in all three group games - versus New Zealand, Brazil and the USSR. He scored his first international goal in the game against the USSR but again Scotland failed to progress.

Also in 1982, Souness played a cameo role, as himself, in an episode of Liverpudlian drama series Boys From The Blackstuff on the BBC.

The following year Liverpool again won the League championship and League Cup but Souness relinquished his right as captain to lift the League Cup at Wembley after the 2-1 win over Manchester United F.C., instead insisting that Paisley collected the trophy in his retirement season.

In 1984, Souness lifted three trophies as Liverpool retained the League title and won the League Cup against fierce Merseyside rivals Everton F.C. A goalless first game was followed by a 1-0 win in the replay, with Souness hitting the only goal with a fabulous long-range strike. The European Cup was regained after a penalty shoot-out win over AS Roma before Souness, who had publicly expressed his wish to play abroad, was sold to Sampdoria for £650,000.

His Liverpool career ended after 358 appearances and 56 goals.

Souness stayed in Italy for two seasons and wound down his international career at the same time as his flirtation with continental football. Caretaker manager Alex Ferguson put Souness in his squad for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico and Souness played in two of the group games against Denmark and West Germany, both of which Scotland lost, again resulting in an early exit.

Souness had crucially been unfit for the game against Uruguay, a team whose tactics relied almost entirely on kicking the opposition as much as the ball - many feel that Souness' own reputation as a hard player may have helped Scotland's cause. Others felt his absence was a good thing as his temperament may have got the better of him in such volatile circumstances.

Souness had scored the only goal of the game in a tremendous Scotland win over England just before that World Cup - two caps later and his international career was over after 54 appearances and four goals in almost 12 years.

He joined Rangers as player-manager for the 1987 season and the occasional bad challenge on opponents - something which Paisley had managed to restrict from him during his Liverpool days - immediately began to surface. He was sent off on his debut after two crude challenges [1] and received a handful more red cards. Souness' final appearance as a player was at Ibrox in a 2-0 victory over Dunfermline in Rangers' last home game of the '89-'90 season when he brought himself on for the final 20 minutes.

His other memorable activity at Rangers was his opening of the floodgates with signing non-Scottish players. He bought many Englishmen on the grounds that good players were the first requirement of a team wishing to succeed, irrespective of nationality. Scottish players had long decamped south of the border to ply their trade but English players had rarely gone north until Souness arrived at Rangers.

It is probable that many English players were attracted to Rangers because the club could play in European competition, while all English clubs were banned from Europe between 1985 and 1990 following the Heysel Stadium disaster. Souness bought defender Terry Butcher, who he described as "six foot four inches of solid muscle" from Ipswich Town F.C. to skipper the side and added goalkeeper Chris Woods and other English players.

His most controversial signing was, however, a Scot. Determined to end Rangers' policy of not signing high-profile Catholic players, he signed Mo Johnston, after the player had publicly pledged to return to his former club Celtic. Johnston soon settled in at Rangers, despite hostility from some supporters of both clubs, and scored plenty of goals. Johnston left Rangers in 1991, moving to Everton, and later to the USA.

Rangers won four Scottish Premier League titles (1987, 1989, 1990, 1991) and four Scottish League Cups under Souness before he left to return to Liverpool in 1991 as manager after the resignation of Dalglish.

The four years which followed were uneventful for Souness and disastrous for Liverpool. There was little success on the field, with only victory in the 1992 FA Cup final over lowly Sunderland, but poor tactics, ill-judged transfer dealings and poor man management caused the decline of what had once been regarded as the greatest football club in Europe.

Rumours about squabbles in the dressing room between the players and Souness were rife, with Ian Rush famously telling a Sky Sports interviewer that 'teacups being thrown' were nothing new. Souness' only consolation at this time was the fact that he had blooded several new prodigious young talents like Steve McManaman and allowed them to play and develop in the first team as compared to all the other senior players whom Souness accused of lacking heart.

Ironically, it was his own heart that literally was under stress. Souness had major heart surgery in 1992, and led his players out at Wembley for the FA Cup final just days after leaving hospital. But there had been controversy over the semi-final against Portsmouth F.C.

The game itself went to a replay and then a penalty shoot-out, and in the event of a victory, an interview was due to be published in a The Sun, a British tabloid, with Souness celebrating the win and his own successful surgery. The photograph which accompanied the interview was of Souness, in his hospital ward, kissing his girlfriend with joy at his own recovery and his team's win.

The interview was due to go in alongside the match report on 14 April, 1992, but the late end to the game meant that the deadline for publication was missed and the report, with interview and photograph, went in on 15 April instead - the third anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster.

Liverpool fans reacted with fury after seeing that the interview was conducted with The Sun - a newspaper which had been boycotted by many people on Merseyside for the intervening years over its reporting of the events at Hillsborough. Although he apologised profusely at the time, Souness has since said that he probably should have resigned.

He made a full recovery from his heart operation and stayed at Liverpool until 1994. He quit after an FA Cup defeat against Bristol City F.C. and was replaced by Roy Evans. He went to manage Galatasaray in Turkey, and again managed to court controversy with local issues - nearly sparking a riot after placing a large Galatasaray flag into the centre circle of the pitch of hated rivals Fenerbahce after Galatasaray had beaten them in the Turkish Cup final. The iconic image of the victor planting the flag drew comparisons with Turkish hero Ulubatli Hasan, who was killed as he planted the Ottoman flag at the end of the Siege of Constantinople. This earned Souness the nickname 'Ulubatli Souness'.[2]

Souness then returned to England to manage Southampton F.C., but resigned, citing differences with chairman Rupert Lowe. He went back to Italy to become the coach at Torino Calcio but lasted just four months.

In 1997, Souness was signed by SL Benfica's new chairman Vale e Azevedo, who promised to return the club to its old glories. The scottish manager brought several british players from the Premier League (defenders Steve Harkness and Gary Charles, midfielders Michael Thomas and Mark Pembridge and forwards Dean Saunders and Brian Deane), all of whom failed to excel. After two seasons without conquering any trophies, Souness was sacked and, with him, all of Benfica's British footballers (including the previously signed left-back Scott Minto).

He then became manager of Blackburn Rovers F.C. earning promotion back to the Premiership in his first season and winning the League Cup in 2002. Souness left Blackburn in 2004 to become manager of Newcastle United F.C. and he remained in this job until February 2006. Souness's disastrous reign at Newcastle is perhaps best summed by a near-baffling interview with BBC reporter Jonathan Pearce following a heavy defeat away to Chelsea:

Pearce: Can you put your finger on why you’re conceding so many second half goals? That’s 27 now.

Souness: Well, I think we, erm, when you get tired, when you’re young, you get tired, you stop concentrating and I think that’s happening to us. When you get old and you’ve been round the block a few times and you know what it’s all about, when you start to get the messages from your legs, telling them tired, telling them, telling your brain they’re tired, message that goes back says, you know, no they’re not, we’re going to dig even deeper and I think right now we’re suffering big-style from people… as they get tired their concentration… dips.

Souness had a difficult time since arriving in the North East. He then fell out with a number of players including Welsh international Craig Bellamy who left the club.

Newcastle began the 2005/2006 season in poor form but Souness was hoping that the 30 August purchase of Michael Owen from Real Madrid for an estimated club-record fee of £17 million would help to turn the club's fortunes around. Newcastle recorded a 'Derby-Day' win against Sunderland A.F.C. (3-2), and went on to win their next 3 games keeping 3 clean sheets. Souness seemed to be tightening Newcastle up in defence, with 6 clean sheets in Newcastle's first 12 games of the season [as many as the whole of the last campaign].

Souness' bringing together of two of the best England strikers in Alan Shearer and Michael Owen proved to be a major factor. However, to Souness's bad fortune, Michael Owen cracked the fifth metatarsal of his right foot during a 2-0 defeat at Tottenham on 30 December, 2005, out of action for approximately 2-3 months, adding to the manager's injury woes.

Souness' tactical ineptness in the modern game meant that his teams were unable to play anything like entertaining football, despite his bizarre claim that he was the most attacking manager Newcastle had had in the modern era, and his lack of long term planning meant that his squad was too thin meaning his side was weakened through injury throughout the season. Expensive signings such as Jean-Alain Boumsong for £8 million and Albert Luque for £10 million failed to make an impression and this again showed Souness' inability to manage at the top level. By the end of his reign as Newcastle boss, Souness was almost universally hated by the Newcastle fans, who regularly booed the team off after their regular dismal performances, and chants of "Souness Out" were both frequent and vociferous at games towards the end of his reign. A recent vote by a Newcastle fanzine voted Souness the worst manager of their history after transforming them from a side pushing for the Champions League to a side struggling to avoid relegation.

Newcastle were in 15th place in the Premiership table, a disappointing position for a club which had spent £50m since Souness' arrival, when his contract was terminated on 2 February.

Souness recently flirted with the idea of succeeding Iain Dowie as manager of Crystal Palace F.C.. He was quoted as saying, "I have a lot of time for Simon Jordan and what he is doing at Crystal Palace. We get on. It is certainly something I would be interested in. I'm ready for another challenge and Palace is something that appeals should it arise." [3] However when Jordan offered Souness the job, Souness turned it down, reportedly because of family reasons.[4]

During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Souness served as a panellist for RTÉ Television's coverage of the tournament.

In 1985, Souness wrote an autobiography called No Half Measures. In 1999 he wrote another book chronicling his post-playing career up to and including his spell at Southampton, entitled Souness: The Management Years.

Souness and his wife have a daughter, Lauren.

Player

• Tottenham Hotspur 1971-1973
• Montreal Olympique 1972
• Middlesbrough 1973-1977
• Liverpool 1977-1984
• Sampdoria 1984-1986

Player-Manager

• Rangers 1986-1991

Manager

• Liverpool 1991-1994
• Galatasaray 1995-1996
• Southampton 1996-1997
• Torino Calcio 1997
• SL Benfica 1997-1999
• Blackburn Rovers 2000-2004
• Newcastle United 2004-2006

Winners

• 1968/69 FA Youth Cup

Winners

• 1973/74 Football League Second Division (Level 2)

Winners

• 1977/78 European Cup
• 1978/79 League Championship (Level 1)
• 1979/80 Charity Shield
• 1979/80 League Championship (Level 1)
• 1980/81 Charity Shield
• 1980/81 League Cup
• 1980/81 European Cup
• 1981/82 League Cup
• 1981/82 League Championship (Level 1)
• 1982/83 Charity Shield
• 1982/83 League Cup
• 1982/83 League Championship (Level 1)
• 1983/84 League Cup
• 1983/84 League Championship (Level 1)
• 1983/84 European Cup

Runner Up

• 1977/78 League Championship (Level 1)
• 1978/79 European Super Cup
• 1981/82 Intercontinental Cup
• 1983/84 Charity Shield

.cup winners cup

Winners

• 1984/85 Italian Cup

Winners

• 1986/87 Scottish League Cup
• 1986/87 Scottish Premier League (Level 1)
• 1987/88 Scottish League Cup

Runner Up

• 1988/89 Scottish Cup

Winners

• 1986/87 Scottish League Cup
• 1986/87 Scottish Premier League (Level 1)
• 1987/88 Scottish League Cup
• 1988/89 Scottish League Cup
• 1988/89 Scottish Premier League (Level 1)
• 1989/90 Scottish Premier League (Level 1)
• 1990/91 Scottish League Cup
• 1990/91 Scottish Premier League (Level 1) (Left with 5 games to go)

Runner Up

• 1988/89 Scottish Cup
• 1989/90 Scottish League Cup

Winners

• 1991/92 FA Cup

Runner Up

• 1992/93 Charity Shield

Winners

• 1995/96 Turkish Cup
• 1996/97 Turkish Super Cup

Runner Up

• 1997/98 Portuguese League Championship

Winners

• 2001/02 League Cup

Runner Up

• 2000/01 Football League First Division (Level 2) Promotion

• LFC Online profile
• LFChistory.net profile
• Photos and stats at sporting-heroes.net
• Statistics (playing in Britain) at soccerbase.com