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The Coaches - Terry Venables (1994-1996)
Tuesday 22 September 2009
When Kevin Keegan resigned in 2001, with England’s World Cup qualification hopes seemingly in tatters, 40% of voters in a BBC online poll said that Terence Frederick Venables should be the man to replace him. In the end it was Sven-Goran Eriksson who walked through the doors of Soho Square to become England’s new Head Coach, but the fact that Venables still enjoyed a massive amount of public backing is reflective of the fond nostalgia with which people remembered Euro ‘96, and the high-esteem in which he was held as a coach, a manager and a man.
At the time of his own appointment, Venables was the easy choice - quite literally the only gig in town. Although the FA were squeamish about his myriad of suspect business interests, ‘El Tel’s’ CV was eclipsed only by that of a previous incumbent, the late Sir Bobby Robson. Following the disappointment of failing to qualify for the 1994 World Cup in the USA, England were preparing to host the 1996 European Championships, and the idea of a Coach from overseas stepping into the hallowed dugout was duly unthinkable.
In the timing of his appointment as Head Coach, Venables faced two immediate advantages. Firstly he would not have the pressure of qualification for a major tournament as England would be there automatically as hosts. Secondly, he wasn’t Graham ‘Turnip’ Taylor, a man whose charmless persona and style of play saw him constantly compared to a root vegetable in the tabloid newspapers.
England under Taylor had been chugging and painful to watch, a testimony born out in his consistent selection of Carlton Palmer in central midfield. But in fairness, the former Watford boss had just missed out on benefiting from the boom years of a nascent Premier League - the beginning of a veritable gravy train that gave English football an extremely potent shot in the arm. By the time Terry Venables started preparing for Euro ‘96, foreign stars like Jurgen Klinsmann, Phillipe Albert and Daniel Amokachi were all plying their trade on our ‘Sceptred Isle’, with their class and experience inevitably rubbing off on young English players. It is against this backdrop, with a tenfold investment increase in the sport as a whole, that Venables’ achievements with the National team should be considered.
The people welcomed Venables, not just for his media-savvy, affable nature, but also because he had genuine pedigree. He had been ‘the Mister’ at Barcelona, and had lead them to their first league title in an age, and to the brink of European glory as his Catalan side suffered a spot-kick defeat at the hands of Steaua Bucharest in a match they had dominated from start to finish. Prior to that he had gained a reputation as a promotion expert, taking Crystal Palace from football’s outer wilderness up through the second division and into the top flight, before similarly establishing Queens Park Rangers as a force feared by all in both league and cup competition.
Football was in the throes of globalisation and now the national team had a man of the world to lead them out on to the field. Grass roots fans cared little that Venables’ previous executive position at Tottenham had ended under conditions of financial acrimony, or that Spurs Chairman Sir Alan Sugar had chased his former colleague through the courts in a struggle for total control of the London club. Terry was the cheery Cockney who had the common touch to appeal to northerners as well. Talking a couple of months before his first training session as Head Coach, Venables had a ready-made sound bite that would set the tone for his time in charge: "I'd like to have a team the public admire and want to watch. It's very sad that we didn't qualify for the World Cup and everyone feels low. I now think it is time to restore fun and enjoyment and the only way to do that is by winning games."
His first two friendlies were both victories at Wembley - 1-0 vs. Denmark and 5-0 vs. Greece. Peter Beardsley had been recalled, David Platt was excelling in his role as captain and the feel-good factor which had deserted the England camp after missing out on USA ‘94 was coming back in increments. Graham Taylor’s tenure had been characterised by a tactical vacuum and long ball football, Venables, conversely settled on a decidedly continental-looking Christmas tree. Just as Glenn Hoddle came to be associated with 3-5-2 and Sven-Goran Eriksson the ‘diamond’, Venables endeavoured to mould England into a ‘pass and move’ team more au courant with the rest of international football, by deploying a three-pronged attack in front of playmaking anchor and two supporting midfielders. Typically, the formation pitted the irrepressible Alan Shearer as the angel on top of the tree with a Beardsley or Teddy Sheringham type in support. The third in the trio, more often than not John Barnes or Darren Anderton, was then given license to either cut inside or fizz out wide as the situation demanded.
 Expectations were gradually tempered after a long list of home draws against teams such as Norway, Romania, Sweden and Uruguay, yet Venables’ public clung on to the fact that the new-look England were still unbeaten on home turf - where Euro ‘96 would be played out - but even that small comfort was shattered as Brazil beat them 3-1 at Wembley to claim the utterly irrelevant Umbro Cup. The problem was apparent. Friendlies, even when disguised as ‘tournaments’ like the Umbro cup, were no sort of yardstick for judging Terry Venables and his squad. Players instinctively played within themselves, mindful of their obligations to their employers and clubs. Even Alan Shearer, in lethal goalscoring form for Blackburn, was finding he couldn’t ‘get it up’ for these banal, meaningless fixtures. He failed to hit the target in the final 11 matches he played for England prior to the European Championships beginning. This led to inevitable grumbles that Manchester United star Andy Cole, who had been ignored by Venables while at Newcastle too, should be starting for the national team. Moreover, noises coming from Soho square’s corridors of power suggested that Euro ‘96 would be Venables one and only major tournament with England, as the wheeler-dealing Head Coach had once again arrived at irreconcilable differences with his employers.
But all that was swept aside as a tide of exhilaration engulfed the country, illuminating Grey Albion as the tournament proper was about to kick off. Sport was hastily fused with popular culture as celebrities, politicians and other malcontents all jumped on the Three Lions bandwagon. Football was finally coming home as comic duo Baddiel and Skinner reminded us time and time again, with a song that seemed to be playing every time you switched radio stations to avoid it. But even the misers were dragged along by the tide in the end - it was a pre-tournament football fever which even eclipsed that of 1966, the year England went on to lift the World Cup.
Perhaps overwhelmed by the scale of public support, England started with a stutter. Struggling for breakthroughs against a Switzerland side coached by Roy Hodgson, as the first game of the tournament ended 1-1. Hodgson’s players had produced a typically organized and thorough display to limit England to one goal all the way up to the dying moments of the game. Then they went up the other end and won a penalty - Kurbilay Turkyilmaz scoring to level the fixture. If there was a hopeful note it was that Alan Shearer looked like he was ready to do the business once more, having ended his barren run of goal-less games with a strike in the 27th minute.
If general euphoria had dipped after that game, then it soared to unprecedented levels following the victory agains
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