Graeme Souness, 73, has enjoyed a glittering career with Middlesbrough, Liverpool, Sampdoria and Rangers before moving into management. It only got more chaotic from there, with the dugouts at Ibrox, Anfield and Galatasaray’s former home of the Ali Sami Yen Stadium, among others, having welcomed his staunch Scottish silhouette.
Opening up to Mirror Football ahead of the release of his new book ‘Graeme Souness: My Rangers’, Souness said: “Let me tell I'm the youngest of three boys and I had the most wonderful childhood.
“It seems to be a competition for people from my generation to tell youngsters who are willing to listen how tough they had it. I had everything I ever wanted in as a child.
Confidence from a solid family unit
“I've always had confidence, that comes from being part of a solid family unit. That's me. My upbringing was that I was made to feel rightly or wrongly very special in my household. I was youngest and I got treated better than my two brothers and they would tell you that was the case.
“Mum and dad were gentle people and then I came along but I can remember my mom several times looking at the three of us and saying to my dad ‘there's something wrong with that one’.
“She wouldn't use my name but say 'there's something wrong with that one. Never a dull moment wherever he goes'. And I've never let her down.”
He certainly hasn’t. Souness has eight league titles to his name as both a player and manager, as well as three European cups and a whole host of other trophies.
Winning as a way of life
Winning was basically all the former midfielder knew. He added: “As a player at Liverpool, winning the league was always the most important thing. It said more about you as a team, as an individual.
“You've dealt with the disappointments, injuries, loss of form, bad decisions. To win a league is not easy.
“But then winning a European Cup in one of Europe's great cities on a warm May evening, that's a special feeling. But when I went to Liverpool, they were already serial winners. They had won multiple leagues, other European competitions were the current European champions. So when I went there, there was nothing new, it was just win it all again.
“And then when I went to Glasgow Rangers the first year I was there and the end of that season we played Aberdeen and we needed a draw to win the league and we did and that was the first time they won the league in nine years.
“I was on the pitch afterwards and the crowd invaded the pitch and there was a grown man older than me - I would have been 33 at the time - had tears in his eyes and said can I kiss your feet Mr. Souness and I didn't know how to handle it. So, the emotion I saw on that day, it was raw. It was the most intense I've ever seen and felt.
“It's quite simple. If you finish second in Scotland, you're a failure. That's the price on the ticket. If you're managing Rangers or Celtic and you finish second, you're a failure.”
Player-manager era gone
Souness spent five years with Rangers as player-manager, with many signalling his arrival at Ibrox as being the start of a revolution within Scottish football. It’s a role that has almost gone out of fashion in the modern game - the most recent example being Ryan Giggs’ short spell as Manchester United player manager in 2014.
“It couldn't be done today,” Souness explains. “Not at a big club. You can’t be a player-manager because the demands on you as a manager are far greater now than they ever were.
“There's managing a big club with all the demands that come with that. So you can’t be a player-manager at Rangers today.
“At night I'm not going home to rest. I'm off traveling into England to look at players or going abroad to look at players and going to dinners that you don't really want to go to. But as a club manager, you have to. So, you can't really rest up properly.”
Learning from the best
When it comes to managers, Souness played under some of the best that the UK had to offer at the time including Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Sir Alex Ferguson - the latter with the Scottish national team.
Asked who had shaped his coaching style the most, Souness replied: “I'd learned everything when I was at Liverpool. I think I went to the equivalent of Oxbridge with the education I had at Liverpool.
“Obviously Shankly was the first one, Paisley to Joe Fagan, Ronnie Moran and Roy Evans that's where I learned it. Fergie was just a mirror of those and their attitude to the game.”
Souness has however never been afraid to break the mould when it comes to his managerial style - or indeed his post-match celebrations. The image of him planting a Galatasaray flag in the middle of the pitch at arch-rivals Fenerbahce is infamous.
And it all echoes back to the words of his mum. Souness says: “You don't want to be the one sitting quietly. You want to be there making an impact. I try to be low key. But if I feel strongly about something, then I'll tell you what I think.
“Jock Stein said something decent. As a football manager, don't go looking for trouble because it finds you on a daily basis. Don't go looking for it.”
