Terry Venables
Terence Frederick Venables, often referred to as "El Tel", was an English football player and manager who played for clubs including Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Queens Park Rangers and won two caps for England.
As a manager, Venables won the Second Division championship with Crystal Palace in 1979. He reached the 1982 FA Cup Final with Queens Park Rangers and won the Second Division in 1983. With Barcelona, he won La Liga in 1985 and reached the 1986 European Cup Final. He guided Tottenham Hotspur to victory in the 1991 FA Cup Final. He also managed Middlesbrough and Leeds United.
As the England national team manager from 1994 to 1996, he reached the semi-finals of the 1996 European Championships. His tactical style was modern and innovative, which was a contrast to the rigid tactical style that dominated English football at the time. Venables also had good personal relationships with the squad. He managed Australia from 1996 to 1998.
Venables also co-authored novels with writer Gordon Williams, for which they used the joint pseudonym "P.B. Yuill".
Early life
Terence Frederick Venables was born at 313 Valence Avenue, Dagenham, Essex on 6 January 1943, the only child of Fred and Myrtle Venables. His father was a Navy petty officer who originally came from Barking. His mother was Welsh, from Clydach Vale. When he was 13, his parents moved to run a pub in Romford, Essex, sending him to live with his maternal grandparents Ossie and Milly, who fostered his love of football.Club career
Venables progressed from representing his county to earning caps for England Schoolboys, and attracted interest from Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and Manchester United.Chelsea
Venables left school in the summer of 1958 and signed for Chelsea as an apprentice at the age of 15. He later said that he joined Chelsea as he felt he had a better chance of breaking into the first team at Stamford Bridge, and also because the club offered his father a job as a part-time scout, and he denied West Ham's youth coach Malcolm Allison's claim that he had only joined Chelsea for financial reasons. He delayed becoming a professional player so he could try for a place on the Great Britain squad for the 1960 Summer Olympics, and turned professional after learning that he would not be selected for the squad. He won the FA Youth Cup with Chelsea in consecutive seasons, as they beat Preston North End in 1960 and Everton in 1961. He made his much anticipated senior debut in a 4–2 defeat to West Ham United on 6 February 1960, with newspapers billing him as "the new Duncan Edwards".Tommy Docherty joined Chelsea as player-coach in September 1961, and went on to replace Ted Drake as manager the following month. Docherty proved to be a successful manager at the club, promoting younger players who became known as "Docherty's Diamonds", and was a highly influential coach in Venables' career, but the pair had a difficult relationship, and Venables believed Docherty to be tactically limited. Chelsea were relegated at the end of the 1961–62 season, but managed to gain promotion out of the Second Division at the first attempt with a second-place finish in 1962–63. They went on to finish fifth in the First Division in the 1963–64 season. He took his FA coaching badges at the age of 24, passing with distinction and a 95% pass mark.
Venables went on to lift the League Cup with Chelsea, and scored a penalty against Leicester City in the two-legged final. Chelsea also reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup in 1964–65, where they were knocked out by Liverpool. With three games left to play they were also in with an outside chance of overtaking Manchester United and Leeds United to win the league title, but Chelsea lost the first of these games 2–0 to Liverpool at Anfield. Docherty reversed his decision to allow the players a night out after the game, but Venables and seven other players broke curfew and went for a brief night out. Upon their return to the team hotel Docherty suspended all eight players for the remainder of the season. Chelsea then lost 6–2 to Burnley, before Docherty reinstated the players for a final-day defeat to Blackpool. Venables never forgave Docherty for the punishment, describing it as "crass, stupid and self-defeating". Docherty placed Venables on the transfer list towards the end of the 1965–66 season, with Chelsea again losing an FA Cup semi-final and heading towards a fifth-place finish.
Tottenham Hotspur
Venables was signed by Tottenham Hotspur for a fee of £80,000, and made his debut for the club in a 1–0 win at Blackburn Rovers on 9 May 1966. He soon made his presence felt when he punched club legend Dave Mackay during training, though no long-term rift developed because of the incident. Spurs went on to have a good 1966–67 season though, finishing third in the league and beating Millwall, Portsmouth, Bristol City, Birmingham City and Nottingham Forest to reach the 1967 FA Cup Final to face his former club Chelsea at Wembley Stadium. Spurs won the cup with a 2–1 victory, Jimmy Robertson and Frank Saul providing the goals before Bobby Tambling scored a late consolation goal for Chelsea. Earlier in the season Venables had bet £25 on Chelsea to win the cup at odds of 25/1, which would have paid out £500 if Spurs had lost the game, exactly the same figure as the £500 cup bonus he would receive for winning the match; after tax deductions, Venables would have been better off financially if Chelsea had won.Venables did not enjoy a great relationship with his manager, believing Bill Nicholson to have a negative attitude that drained him of enthusiasm. He also believed that he was not appreciated by the Spurs fans. The club dropped to seventh- and sixth-place finishes in 1967–68 and 1968–69, and Nicholson accepted an offer of £70,000 for Venables from Queens Park Rangers on 20 June 1969.
Queens Park Rangers
Venables later said that his transfer to Second Division QPR changed his life, and stated that "I cannot think of a transfer blessed with so much good fortune". Initially, Rangers could only manage mid-table finishes in the 1969–70 and 1970–71 campaigns, with Venables scoring 18 goals in 83 games. Chairman Jim Gregory opted to sack Les Allen and appoint Gordon Jago as manager, who took Rangers up to fourth-place in 1971–72 – just two points behind promoted Birmingham City. Once coach Bobby Campbell departed Loftus Road for Arsenal, Jago allowed Venables to supervise the club's training sessions. Rangers continued to progress, and won promotion in 1972–73 after securing runners-up spot with an 11-point gap over third-place Aston Villa.Crystal Palace
Venables signed with Crystal Palace in 1974; he and Ian Evans were traded to Palace in exchange for Don Rogers. He made 14 Third Division appearances in the 1974–75 season before retiring due to arthritis on New Year's Eve. Manager Malcolm Allison gave him a coaching role for the second half of the campaign.St Patrick's Athletic
Venables played for League of Ireland side St Patrick's Athletic for a short period between February and March 1976.International career
As well as receiving two international caps, Venables held the distinction of being the only footballer to play for England at schoolboy, youth, amateur, Under-23, and for the full international team; as the amateur team was disbanded in 1974 no player was ever able to match his record. He was named by Alf Ramsey on the list of 33 "possibles" for the 1966 FIFA World Cup, having won two caps in 1964 – a 2–2 draw with Belgium and a 1–1 draw with the Netherlands, but did not make it into the final squad of 22.Managerial career
Crystal Palace
Venables worked as Malcolm Allison's coach for the 1975–76 season, when Palace reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup; however they lost the semi-final tie with Southampton and their subsequent league form suffered as they slipped back to fifth-place. Venables succeeded Allison as manager in June 1976. It proved to be a busy month for Venables, as he turned down the surprise offer to walk out on Palace to succeed Bertie Mee as Arsenal manager and also had a para-sailing accident in Majorca which required 40 stitches.As Crystal Palace manager, Venables built a young team of mostly youth team players and free transfer signings which the media dubbed the "Team of the Eighties". Star winger Peter Taylor was sold on to Spurs for £200,000, but most of this sum went on balancing the club's books. Venables spent £1,500 to sign striker Rachid Harkouk from Feltham, coming up with half of this sum out of his own funds on the understanding that he would receive 50% of any future transfer fee for the player. By March 1977, the board found enough money for Venables to purchase Jeff Bourne from Derby County for £30,000, and Bourne ended the 1976–77 campaign with nine goals in 15 games to help Palace to secure the third and final automatic promotion place.
His team adjusted well to the Second Division and finished in ninth-place in 1977–78, before going on to win promotion as champions in 1978–79. They secured the title with a final day victory over Burnley in a rearranged fixture some days after all their promotion rivals had completed their fixtures; the win meant that they leapfrogged Brighton & Hove Albion, Stoke City and Sunderland, and they denied their M23 derby rivals from the south coast what would have been their club's highest honour.
His first season as a manager in the First Division, in the 1979–80 season, started successfully, and on 29 September, Crystal Palace were top of the English Football League for one week. They ended back down in 13th-place, which was at that time the club's highest ever league finish.
The following season started badly for Venables; expensive high-profile signings failed to gel, and by October 1980, Palace were bottom of the First Division, attendance was plummeting and the club was in financial difficulties. Venables left during October to join Second Division Queens Park Rangers; although the exact reasons behind his sudden departure have never been made clear.