Terry Venables was a football romantic who made every player feel like a star

The brilliant man-manager built great collectives and his vision of the game was fuelled by entrepreneurial spirit and self-belief

There was the club singing career. The series of detective novels. The clothes shop in Chelsea. The board game. The range of women’s wigs. The chain of pubs. The ticket agency. Then there was the football, in all its guises: player, coach, manager, chief executive, owner, adviser, pundit. Terry Venables wanted to do it all, and it was the making of him, and it was the breaking of him.

He was an only child with a short attention span and a ruthless personal ambition, and yet he was a people person at heart, a valued companion and a superb man‑manager who built great footballing collectives. He was a businessman and a romantic, a man steeped in football tradition who, nonetheless, saw the sport as a branch of the entertainment industry. He wanted to be famous and he wanted to be wealthy and he wanted to be loved and he wanted to win.

Continue reading…

About Author