Thursday, December 27 – 1979
Graeme Souness has a great pre-match warm-up routine. It’s called sex.
A bottle of wine and some soft music are indispensable aids to the man they call Champagne Charlie. “To suggest that a player should not have sex the night before a match is the height of silliness,” he says.
“I’ve had enjoyable nights and mornings before a game, and it’s never affected me.
“Fortunately, Liverpool management treat players like adults. They don’t sneak around like the clubs who go looking in bedrooms and checking up on your whereabouts two days before a match.”
There is a subtle difference, however, between home matches and away matches.
Says 25-year-old Graeme: “Making love to a steady girlfriend is not going to be all that tiring. If it’s before a match I won’t put a lot of energy into it.
“Being up all night with someone new is a different matter. But it’s not the sex that tires you, it’s what you have to do to get there.
The Edinburgh-born Graeme does not have to do the chasing.
“I stay in most nights and watch television. About once a week I might go out for a pint,” he says, fighting to keep his face straight.
He adds: “I’m single, I play football, and I have no trouble meeting women.
“The only trouble I have is separating the real ones from the posers.
I like to be seen with glamorous women, but not the ones who hang around because of my name.
“Actresses and models are not my type either.”
What about the gossip linking him with ex-Miss World, Mary Stävin?
“I didn’t even know who she was,” said Graeme. “She was pretty, and we became friends.
“I’ve only had three serious relationships in my life, and marriage was never a factor in any of them.
“I’ve seen too many players marrying young, and living to regret it.” Graeme has no illusions about the game either. He has had his own disappointments.
“Football is a cold, hard world, where the fittest survive. How else would you cope with 30,000 people screaming abuse at you every week?
“That’s realism, no bitterness. I know that when a club has had the best out of me, they’ll sell me.
“But I’ve had the best out of football. It’s brought me money, travel and it’s educated me.
“And women, too. That’s one of the nicest parts.”
(Daily Mirror, 27-12-1979)
Graeme Souness
Mary Stäwin
"Play Up, Liverpool" 