Graeme Souness inspired by sick schoolgirl to swim English Channel
He was the hardest of footballers but his heart has been melted by the suffering of youngsters like Isla Grist
Graeme Souness with Isla Grist. “For these kids it like someone has taken a blowtorch to their skin”
He is famous for being the hardest of international footballers who became a tough-talking manager and a TV pundit, but five years ago a cause came along “like a punch on the nose” and changed Graeme Souness’s life.
He was a guest at a dinner when he met a woman with epidermolysis bullosa (EB), an excruciating degenerative condition known as “butterfly skin” that makes the lives of sufferers almost unendurable.
EB causes the skin to blister and tear at the slightest touch and can affect the hands and feet or, in the most severe cases, any part of the body. Those affected are in constant debilitating pain.
Souness, right, with Isla’s father, Andy. Souness has been swimming regularly for nine months to build up stamina
Next month the former Liverpool, Rangers and Scotland captain will swim the English Channel to raise £1.1
