Fans of Chelsea and QPR have been paying tribute to Terry Venables, the affable midfielder who went on to manage England.
Terry, who has died at the age of 80, signed for the Blues as a £5-a-week apprentice, making more than 200 appearances in a six-year spell at Stamford Bridge from 1960, helping twice lift the FA Youth Cup as skipper of the team, and winning the League Cup in 1965. He scored 26 goals in royal blue, having made his debut at 17 alongside Jimmy Greaves.
It wasn’t all sweetness and light at Chelsea, however. He was one of eight players (including Eddie McCreadie, John Hollins and George Graham) disciplined for breaking a curfew imposed by manager Tommy Docherty near the season’s end in 1965.
“I loved my time there so much that I wanted to stay all my career,” he once said, paying special tribute to Dickie Foss, Chelsea’s youth team manager. “I rated him very highly as a big influence on my career.”
That Chelsea youth side blossomed into the team which won the FA Cup and European Cup-Winners’ Cup in the early 70s, but the arrival of mercurial midfielder Charlie Cooke meant there were fewer playing opportunities for Terry.
Spurs signed him for £80,000 in 1966, where he made 115 appearances in three years and helped win the FA Cup, before moving down a division to join QPR at Loftus Road in the summer of 1969 for £70,000.
In 177 outings for the Rs, the midfielder scored 19 goals before a move to Crystal Palace in 1974.
Arthritis ended his playing career, but he’d already been taking an active role on the training field and a move into management followed – a switch predicted by his mother when he was just 10, and organising street football games in the streets of Essex, where he grew up.
As manager of Palace, QPR (1980-84), Barcelona (where he earned the nickname El Tel), Spurs, England (taking the national side to the verge of glory at Euro 96), Australia, Palace again, Middlesbrough and Leeds, he had a reputation as a caring, charismatic and tactically astute leader.
“It didn’t surprise me that so many [from the Chelsea team of the mid-60s] went into football management,” Terry once said. “We grew up together and talked about football and tactics in the cafe on Fulham Broadway for hours!”
Terry Venables was also an entertainer. He owned a nightclub, Scribes West, in Kensington, where he would regularly hop up on stage and croon a few old favourites, having made one brief starring appearance at the old Hammersmith Palais, fronting for the Joe Loss Orchestra.
“I’ve always taken football seriously, but I’ve not always taken myself quite as seriously,” Terry said in 2001. “We had a great camaraderie, and I loved to mimic people like Max Wall and Tommy Cooper, and tell jokes and sing a few songs; it was all innocent fun, and helped foster a great team spirit.”
He had first been brought to Loftus Road as a player in 1969 by QPR’s then owner Jim Gregory, and played alongside the great Rodney Marsh.
But it was his three years as manager of the Hoops in the early 1980s that Rangers fans best remember, not least for the fact that the pitch at Loftus Road was torn up and replaced by an artificial surface.
Terry took the Rs to an FA Cup final, and won the old Second Division title in 1983. But so well did the manager do at Rangers (his side finished fifth in the top flight) that he was poached by Barcelona to work in Spain in 1984.
Before Chelsea Women’s 5-2 victory over Leicester City at Kingsmeadow on Sunday lunchtime, everyone in the stadium stood for a two-minute silent tribute, and all the players wore black armbands.
Similar tributes will take place at other stadiums this week, including Loftus Road on Tuesday evening when Rangers take on Stoke in the Championship, and at Stamford Bridge on Sunday where the Blues take on Brighton. Tributes will also be paid at the London Stadium on Sunday, where Palace play West Ham, close to the young Terry Venables’ early stamping grounds.
Terry Venables b 6 January 1943, d 25 November 2023.
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
