Tea-lady stirs up Souness storm

AGGIE Moffat, the St Johnstone tea lady who became a football legend after a dressing room showdown with Graeme Souness, has spoken for the first time of the row which led to the former Rangers manager leaving Ibrox.

Twelve years ago, Mrs Moffat, described by her employers as a "battle axe with a heart of gold", hit the headlines when it was revealed she and Souness had squared up to each other at Muirton Park after the former Scotland captain allegedly threw one of her tea jugs against the dressing room wall.

Souness later cited the incident, part of a long-running feud with the diehard Celtic fan, as the catalyst for his decision to quit his job at Rangers and leave Scottish football.

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But Mrs Moffat has now broken her silence for the first time over the affair and has vowed to finish the confrontation she started with the former Rangers’ manager.

She said: "He is just a plonker. He always will be. I never liked the man and I never will."

In an interview on Grampian Television’s People Show, to be shown next Thursday, she claims a seething Souness had smashed her jug after Rangers drew 1-1 with St Johnstone.

She had picked up the pieces of the shattered crockery and was taking them to show her chief executive when she met Souness and Walter Smith, then the Rangers’ assistant manager, in the foyer.

She says: "I heard Walter Smith saying, ‘She’s got that jug’. I gave it to the managing director and as far as I was concerned, that was it.

"I turned away and then I banged into him - Souness. I would have just walked on had he not put his hand in his pocket and asked how much was the jug. Well, I saw red then. That was it. And the things that he said - ‘You will never work at Rangers’.

"I said, ‘I wouldnae be one o’ your puppets.’ Things got worse. I pushed him and he pushed me. I was about an inch away from his nose."

She continues: "If he’d come back the next season I would have finished it. His nose would have been splattered over his face. That’s the only thing I regret not happening - that I didnae finish it. I should have broken his big nose.

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"I will see him again. I will make it a point to meet him again - and I will finish what I started."

Souness has made no secret of his disdain for the formidable tea lady at St Johnstone and wrote in his biography that Last of Summer Wine’s Nora Batty would have run a mile if she had even been confronted by Mrs Moffat.

Yesterday, Souness was unavailable for comment at Blackburn Rovers, where he is now manager. A spokeswoman said: "He doesn’t want to talk about it."