By TTT Subscriber Nicholas M. Higgins (Neu).

YOSSER: You’re Graeme Souness, aren’t you?

Souness: Yeah.

YOSSER: You’re famous.

Souness: Well…

YOSSER: I’m Yosser Hughes.

Souness: Pleased to meet you.

YOSSER: You look like me.

Souness: Oh aye.

YOSSER: Magnum as well.

One of the most memorable scenes from Alan Bleasdale’s epochal drama from 1982, ‘Boys From The Black Stuff”, with its nuanced combination of celebrity, social realism, pop culture and a dash of the surreal. With three European Cups already bagged and another one to come two years hence, it’s arguable that Liverpool FC was at its apotheosis at that point (ironically when the city itself was on its knees)  and no one epitomised it more than Graeme Souness, Liverpool midfielder and captain at that time.

Souey’s reputation has taken something of a battering in the last two decades, what with his poor management of the team and his deeply questionable decision to sell the story of his heart operation to The Sun newspaper. He’ll never be the most likeable of men: vain, opportunistic, avaricious, arrogant. But we’re not here to talk about that. Forget your preconceptions; Graeme Souness was one of the finest players ever to put on the famous red shirt.

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