A Celtic rival as a player and manager and now long time pundit for Sky Sports, Graeme Souness, made a guest appearance on Talksport recently, as he appeared alongside Simon Jordan and Jim White.
During one of the segments, Souness was asked which manager he learned from the most. This lead Souness to reply with a very interesting answer.
Souness: “How lucky was I, if you’ll indulge me here, I worked for Bill Nicholson, basically I was a reserve player, a youth player, not much of an input there.”
“From Jock Stein, Scottish manager, to Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Alex Ferguson, briefly as a Scottish manager.”
“So you know, if I hadn’t picked up some stuff from those guys I must have been walking about both my ears closed.”
White: “Who was the best?”
Souness: “An interesting one, Hugh McIlvanney had lunch with them several times, the legendary writer, and he knew them all, so you’ve got Jock Stein, you’ve got Bill Shankly and you’ve got Alex Ferguson and Matt Busby having lunch, who was the dominant voice? Who did he say? Who were they all listening to?”
Jordan: “Matt Busby?”
Souness: shaking his head: “Jock Stein. They’d all be hanging on every word he said.”
“I find that fascinating.”
White: “Wow”
I’m not a fan of Souness, but I thought this was a nice story to write about and I enjoyed hearing it.
It just shows you what a legendary manager Jock Stein was and how much he was revered by other great managers at that time, and of course still is to this day.
Stein of course took Celtic to our greatest ever achievement, being the first British club to win the European Cup in 1967, while also winning the domestic treble that same season, along with the Glasgow Cup.
Without doubt one of the greatest managers football has ever seen.
Yes, I’m neither a fan nor admirer, he stands for all the wrong things imho. I was eager to feel the tone of your article as I know many, like you, who can’t stand this guy,
It’s of no surprise to me that they hung on Jocks’ every word; he was streaks ahead of them all.