Terry Venables - footballer, TV crime writer, singer, bar owner and England boss

26 November 2023 , 21:56

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Terry Venables has died at the age of 80

Karaoke bar owner, TV detective series writer, crooner, novelist, restauranteur... and a bit of football on the side. Terry Venables – or El Tel, as he was crowned during his time in Spain – was a jack of all trades.

But he was certainly master of at least one – the beautiful game. His colourful and controversial life often took as many headlines as his on-field achievements. As the man himself said: “I like to be busy or lazy. There’s nothing in the middle for me.”

But his cheeky-chappy, wheeler-dealer public persona masked a shrewd footballing brain. He took over from Graham Taylor with the national side on its knees after failing to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, and carried the Three Lions on a wave of Cool Britannia stardust to the Euro 96 semi-finals.

In the words of Baddiel and Skinner’s song, adopted by a fervent Wembley crowd, football came home. But the wave crashed down in penalty heartache against Germany, current boss Gareth Southgate fluffing his lines. It was Venables’ second big disappoinment – his Barcelona side lost the 1986 European Cup final on spot kicks to Steaua Bucharest.

Terry with his first wife Christine and their daughters (Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

But Venables was no “nearly man”. He won the League Cup and FA Cup as a player with Chelsea and Spurs in the 60s, and the Spanish league and cup with Barca as a manager in the 80s, before masterminding Tottenham’s eighth FA Cup triumph in 1991.

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Venables was born in Dagenham, East London, the only child of Navy petty officer Fred, from the East End, and Myrtle, from the Rhondda Valley, Wales. After his parents moved to run a pub in Romford, Essex, he was brought up by grandparents Ossie and Milly. His grandfather instilled in young Terry a love for football.

At 15, he signed for Chelsea as an apprentice while pursuing his other great love – singing. He was adept at juggling both and even performed alongside the Joe Loss Orchestra in 1960.

Later in his teens, his manager Tommy Docherty gave him an ultimatum.

He had a great love of singing (Getty Images)

“I won a talent contest at Butlins, and was invited back for September,” Venables recalled in 2002. “He said: ‘No, you might be in the team.’”

Venables focused on football, while finding time to open a West End tailor and invent the Thingummywig – a hat with artificial hair mounted inside.

He married dressmaker Christine McCann in 1966 and had two daughters – Nancy, now 56, and Tracey, 53. Midfielder Venables moved to Spurs in 1966 then to Queens Park Rangers in 1969, before winding down with a spell at Crystal Palace.

Playing football with Ken Brown in Dagenham, 1965 (Getty Images)

He was never one to rely solely on a footballer’s wage and branched out again, co-authoring three novels with writer Gordon Williams.

The protagonist was Cockney detective Harry Hazell, who introduced himself in his 1974 debut as “the biggest b*****d who ever pushed your bell-button”. An ITV adaptation, Hazell, aired from 1978 to 1980.

Speaking about his writing success, Venables said in 2009: “It wasn’t working at first so I put a detective into it. There were two 13-episode series which ran every Monday in prime time. It was quite big.”

As Crystal Palace football manager, 1980 (Mirrorpix)

He took the reins at Palace in 1976, guiding both the Eagles and QPR to promotion before Barca came calling in 1984. That year, his marriage to Christine ended – he met Yvette Bazire and married her in 1991.

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Sacked by Barca in 1987, Venables returned to Tottenham, where he paid £2m to sign Paul Gascoigne from Newcastle and helped to develop him into one of the world’s finest players.

Meeting the Queen (Daily Mirror)

His time at Spurs ended in acrimony and legal battles with the club’s then-owner, fellow Cockney Sir Alan Sugar. Off-field problems never went away, and led to the FA’s decision to hire Glenn Hoddle to replace Terry after Euro 96.

A libel action from Sir Alan forced him to pulp an autobiography, and in 1998 he accepted 19 charges of serious misconduct in his business affairs.

With wife Yvette Venables in 1992 (EXPRESS)

But 1996 and all that ensured his status was still high. In 2000, he appeared on Celebrity Stars in Your Eyes as Anthony Newley, saying: “So many had done Frank Sinatra that they asked me to do someone else.”

He later ran a boutique hotel and restaurant in Alicante, Spain (Andy Hooper/ANL/REX/Shutterstock)

Venables even had two stabs at the pop charts – with England Crazy in 2002, and a cover of Elvis’s If I Can Dream in 2010. They reached numbers 46 and 23 respectively.

He coached Australia, then Palace, Middlesbrough and Leeds. His last job in football was back with the England team in 2007, as assistant to Steve McClaren. He and Yvette later ran a Kensington dining club and a hotel and restaurant in Alicante, Spain.

He was a man with a finger in every pie – but he will forever be remembered as the manager who almost ended those 30 years of hurt.

Sanjeeta Bains