Invincible Aggie, the tea lady who tackled Souness, dies at age of 72
SHE was the tea lady whose blazing row with one of football’s most fearsome characters changed the course of the Scottish game.
Now Aggie Moffat, the houseproud St Johnstone employee who gave Graeme Souness a piece of her mind over the crockery he smashed in a rage, has died aged 72.
The tea lady, who worked for the Perth club for 27 years, entered footballing folklore in 1991 when she confronted the Armani-suited Rangers manager in a corridor.
Later Souness admitted the row had brought him to his senses and was a key factor in his decision to leave the Ibrox club.
The showdown followed a 1-1 draw with St Johnstone and a Souness tantrum in the visito tors’ dressing room, which resulted in broken china and tea dripping down the walls.
On discovering the shambles, Mrs Moffat reputedly marched up to Souness and asked if he would leave his home in that state.
Mrs Moffat, a Celtic fan, later recalled: ‘He said I would never work for Rangers and I said I wouldn’t want to be one of his puppets. Things got worse and I pushed him and he pushed me. I was an inch from his nose.’
She was still angry with him a decade later. ‘He is a plonker and he always will be,’ she said in 2001. ‘I never liked the man and I never will.’ She added: ‘It’s water under the bridge now – but I still wouldn’t speak to the man.’
Souness admitted the clash persuaded him leave Scottish football and return to Liverpool where he had been a player.
He said: ‘What pushed it over the edge for me was when I became involved in an incident with a tea lady at St Johnstone.
‘I ended up arguing in the boardroom with the club chairman [Geoff Brown] and I’m one step away from... you know ... I asked myself, what was I doing? This lady [Mrs Moffat] wasn’t scared of me.’
The incident later attracted the attention of Hollywood legend Robert Duvall. Mrs Moffat was approached to join Duvall and onetime St Johnstone player and Rangers legend Ally McCoist in the 2000 movie A Shot at Glory. But she turned down the role of Wee Brenda, a tea lady with village club Kilnockie who had a spat with a leading manager.
‘I have no regrets and I was proved right. The film was rotten,’ she reflected later. She hung up her apron in 2007 aged 62. Former St Johnstone manager Alex Totten, Mrs Moffat’s favourite boss, said: ‘It’s sad news. Aggie was a larger than life character. She treated everyone exactly the same, as Graeme Souness discovered.’
A St Johnstone spokesman said: ‘Aggie was a great servant to the football club over many years. Everyone at St Johnstone is sad to learn of her passing on Thursday.’
‘Aggie was a larger than life character’