Terry Venables was England’s most charismatic manager ever and brought back joy
There has never been a more charismatic England manager than Terry Venables. With his gift of the gab, easy charm and infectious laugh he was a man players wanted to play for and fans couldn’t help falling for.
He had the personal warmth of a Spanish summer. Venables put a smile a mile wide on the country’s face in that unforgettable summer of 1996. He brought the feel-good back to football.
Shearer and Sheringham, Gascoigne, Adams and the rest – the baubles on the Venables Christmas tree – may not have won those Euros but on the run to the semi-final they held a nation entranced. The 4-1 trouncing of Holland remains one of England’s finest performances.
If his people skills made him a great man manager, Venables was also a razor-sharp tactician. There was though a loveable rogue element to his character which, while it played to the galleries, also saw him sail close to the wind.
He was overlooked initially for the England job in 1990 when he was Tottenham manager because of concerns over his business dealings. When he did finally land the post four years later, his tenure ended after the home Euros adventure to enable him to concentrate on a series of court cases.
In 1998 he was banned from holding company directorships for seven years. If Venables’ Del Boy streak meant it would have been unwise to have bought a second-hand car from him, spending time in his company was never dull.
He would hold court – or sometimes sing – in his Kensington private members’ club Scribes West. He reached No 23 in the charts with a cover of an Elvis Presley hit ‘If I can dream’. That was Venables, the life and soul of the party.
As a player, Venables was a polished enough inside forward to have played twice for England during a career which took him from Chelsea to Tottenham then QPR and onto Crystal Palace. During his career, he found time to co-write detective novels which were turned into the TV series Hazell.
It was at Palace that his life as a coach began, first as an assistant to Malcolm Allison before taking charge himself and taking an exuberant young side up from the Third to the First Division. At QPR, there was more success which led to Barcelona calling in 1984.
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He guided them to their first league title in 11 years and the legend of El Tel was born. His death on Sunday after a long illness leaves a void in the firmament of English football but the happiest of memories too.
Venables once described those 1996 Euros – when football so nearly came home – as the best time of his life. Many other Englishmen who were aboard for that magical journey will feel the same way.
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