WHILE I was watching morning TV recently, I was interested to see an old friend of mine sitting on a settee being interviewed – Graeme Souness.

What surprised me was that while he was talking about something he had to pause as he was getting all choked up.

I thought hang on, he was one of the toughest football men I ever worked with. The camera panned to show him in the room with a couple and their young daughter.

It turns out her name was Isla and Graeme had become a good friend of her and her family – they were born in Scotland, both of them.

Graeme had found out that the girl had the most unusual skin problem – Epidermolysis Bullosa – which has been called butterfly skin.

It’s difficult to even touch her arms because the skin would come straight off. It is very painful and apparently most days she is bandaged from head to foot.

Graeme is using his platform and publicity to try and help raise awareness and funds to the tune of £1.1million for charity DEBRA.

He is looking for donations and in return is going into the English Channel’s waters. He lives nearby but has never been in there before, and is part of a six-person relay team that will cross it.

I spoke to him about it and got the impression he is spending around four hours in the water and although the sun is shining now, I don’t think the water is going to be any warmer.

The charity is looking for help to try and get rid of this terrible disease. Graeme, of course, was a legend in the game and mainly at Liverpool.

Speaking of Liverpool, they were our final Premier League opponents for at least a year. The game itself almost had a full house on a sun-shining day with goals galore.

It looked a lovely pitch so full marks to the groundsman and our staff for all their work this season – it looked like it was an opening day fixture!

Liverpool scoring four was probably not too much of a surprise for them but Saints scored four too! It was a great pity it wasn’t the opening day of the season as that would have given us a big lift.

Having said that, let’s use that lift as a way to get us back into the Premiership, hopefully, next season – or as quickly as possible.

I am sure there are lots of things happening at the club that will be affecting players and staff – I don’t know anything about how contracts are handled these days with relegation.

I believe some staff have been made aware they might not be keeping their jobs in the wake of the exit from the Premiership.

Players agents are running around to try and get their players back into the top-flight at other clubs but we have to wait to see where everyone stands on the field and off it.

Having been in the game and seen the highs and lows at different times, I wish all of the working people who tried their very best at the club good luck for their futures. Thank you to all of them for all of their efforts at our club.

The FA Cup final always gets a good mention in our area because of the happy memories Saints had in the competition.

The interesting thing about this weekend’s final is that both clubs are in the same city – it’s the first Manchester derby in the final of the competition.

Unfortunately, it coincides for northern supporters with rail strikes. It would be easier if they had a stadium they could just host the game in up there!

Wembley is of course the home of English football though and it will be interesting to see the final result. It could well go to a draw but on this season’s form, Man City must be favourites!

We all know that being the favourite on the day doesn’t mean you always win…