Souness on why he planted Galatasaray flag at Fenerbahce and nearly sparked riot

Graeme Souness was known for his fiery temper during his playing days and that fearlessness carried over into his managerial career, most notably while at the helm of Turkish giants Galatasaray.

As a player, Souness was the beating heart of the dominant Liverpool side of the late 1970s while the pinnacle of his management career came in his home country as he spearheaded Rangers to three league titles in the late 80s. Nowadays, the former Scotland international is most commonly soon in the Sky Sports studio on punditry duty, but things were drastically different back in the mid-1990's while he was a manager.

Souness had just come out of a three-year spell at the helm of the club he is most synonymous with in Liverpool and sought a new challenge away from English football. He duly found one in the form of Gala, who appointed the ex-Reds midfielder as their manager in the summer of 1995. It is there where arguably Souness the manager is remembered most fondly, having etched his name into Turkish football folklore forever in one switch, sudden but shocking act.

It came at the end of the 1996 Turkish Cup final when Souness' Gala side took on their most fierce rivals Fenerbahce in the biggest game of the calendar year - stakes were high and tensions higher. The ill-feeling between these two is often referred to as 'The Eternal Rivalry', that same ill-feeling was hardly helped by Souness' actions at full-time.

Having won the two-legged final via a Dean Saunders goal in extra time, Souness ran onto the pitch and planted a flag showing the red and yellow colours of Galatasaray in the centre circle of Fenerbahce's pitch. Inevitably, it nearly incited a riot from the angry home faithful inside the Sukru Saracoglu Stadium.

Years later, Souness recalled the incident and his motives while talking to Sky Sports. "One of their [Fenerbahce's] vice-presidents had said 'what are Galatasaray doing signing a cripple?', he was referring to the open-heart surgery I had.

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"So we play them nine months later in the cup final, a two-legged cup final - we won the first game in our stadium 1-0, lose the second game 1-0 after ninety minutes. It goes to extra time, Dean Saunders - a really good player and great striker of the ball, before he's actually made contact with it I am up off my seat knowing he's going to score.

"We win the trophy and after the game, all of our players ran down to one end where our supporters were and that great big flag was handed over. All the players took turns to wave it and then it's my turn, I give it a few waves and then turned to hand it to someone."

It is at this stage Souness explains how the events unfolded in the manner that they did. "They [the players] had all run off to the halfway line, so I am now jogging back up to the halfway line with this flag and I look into the emptying stands and I can see this guy's face who called me a cripple.

"As a sort of, 'I'll show you who's a cripple' I ran off to the centre of the pitch, got the flag in and turned round and I realised, all the supporters now climbing over the fence and I'm thinking 'maybe this wasn't such a good idea."

The situation soured dramatically and rapidly, as Souness explains as he recalls having to be escorted off of the pitch by police. "I get underneath the perspex shields of the police and I am in the tunnel saying to myself 'cor, got away with that one' and just as I thought that I got clumped round the side of the head by a supporter who had got into the tunnel."

Ultimately, the situation is perhaps best summarised by Souness' final assessment. "It's one of those things you wished you hadn't done but at the time seemed like a good idea."