He led Rangers back to the top of the Scottish game after years in the wilderness.
A young, ambitious, first-time manager who arrived in the country having made himself a living legend during his playing days in front of the Kop.
And who, eventually, would succumb when the chance arrived to return to make an emotional return to Liverpool.
You don’t need to be a clairvoyant to know where this one’s going.
Graeme Souness’ sixth sense tells him Steven Gerrard will, almost inevitably, one day follow the same path from Glasgow back to Merseyside. And he’s not quite sure how to feel about that.
And yet, all these years on, he admits he never enjoyed being a manager as much at any other club.
He almost sighs as he says: “You don’t realise certain things until later in life. When I went to Rangers, for example, I was a young man and, naively, it was all about me. That’s like most young men – nothing scares you.
“So I went into Rangers with that attitude. If I had taken on the Rangers job later in life would I have gone about it with the same aggression and gung-ho attitude? Thinking I could take anything on?
“Probably not. It’s only once you’ve taken a few punches on the nose that you start to realise you’re not as invincible as you liked to think you were. Looking back, I was totally spoiled in my first job.
“I had David Holmes who just handed the club to me and allowed me to make all the football decisions. It was the same under David Murray.
“Of course I made mistakes but I had good people like Walter Smith around me and we got more right than we got wrong. I loved it.
“But I thought at the time that every job must be like this. I was wrong. I never got the same enjoyment anywhere that I had at Rangers.”
Deep down Souness wonders if Gerrard might say the same thing one day.
And yet, at the same time, he understands why the lure of Liverpool would most probably prove impossible for the former skipper to ignore.
What he is absolutely certain of, however, is that Gerrard is already more than equipped for the role of filling Jurgen Klopp’s jacket.
“I’ll give you a comparison,” he says by way of offering up proof. “Brendan Rodgers.
“He leaves Swansea and goes to Liverpool. Now, it’s still the same game but the requirements of the job are totally different.
“Same thing for Frank Lampard moving from Derby to Chelsea.
“You go from doing one press conference a week to having to deal with the media every single day.
“Nothing prepares them for the intensity and the enormity of the role they are taking on.
“But for Steven leaving Rangers and going to Liverpool? It’s just more of the same. The demands on him up in Glasgow are enormous. So when he leaves there the job description doesn’t really change.
“You have to win every game you play. You have to play a certain style. You’re expected to be a media man as well as a manager.
“So if he was to move to Liverpool then the demands placed upon him won’t become any greater than they already are.
“It’s funny, I was saying the same thing to Martin O’Neill at a lunch for my charity Debra. And he agreed – managing Rangers or Celtic is the most difficult job in British football because so much is expected of you.
“You’re meant to win every game but football is not like that. It should never be like that. And it’s not the case in Scotland.
“The reason for it is there are two types of players you come up against. You play against one who dislikes you enormously because he’s a Celtic supporter. Or he’s a Rangers supporter and he wants to beat you to show you how good he is. That was my
experience of playing up there. You’ve got to be bang at it every time because the guys on the other side of the pitch are playing their cup final. They want to go to war with you.”
Which is why Souness speaks so highly of the job Gerrard has done in leading Rangers to a first top-flight title in 10 years.
Souness was on-air the night No.55 was secured.
His voice quivered with emotion as he referred to old pal Walter Smith and he’s not the slightest bit embarrassed to admit it. He says: “No, I didn’t hide my emotions because I’m a Rangers supporter.
“And I didn’t want Celtic to win 10 in a row.
“We had to win it that year and we did. In style.
“There was something like a 37-point turn around between us and Celtic from the season before.
“We didn’t just scrape over the line – we won it with style, playing a brand of football everybody enjoyed. Steven has turned the club around to such an extent that Celtic are now playing catch-up.
“There has only been one big blip throughout his whole time there, when Celtic and Rangers both went to Dubai at Christmas in 2019.
“Celtic came back and found another gear. Rangers also found another gear but it was the wrong f****** gear. Reverse!
“So that was a mystery and I’m sure it will have left Steven scratching his head.
“It’s been a slow burner because he didn’t have the kind of money to transform everything overnight. But he’s done a fantastic job in terms of growing the team organically.
“That’s all happened because of patience from the supporters and from the board, seeing the bigger picture, and the hard work of Steven and his staff.”
Three pairs of tickets to An Exclusive Evening with Graeme Souness and Friends up for grabs.
If you are one of our lucky winners, you’ll have a night to remember, as Souness shares some of his favourite memories of his time as a footballer and manager. With special guest appearances from Ally McCoist, Ian Durrant, and Mark Walters you won’t want to miss this.
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