THOSE who don’t remember the golden summer of 1996 wonder what all the fuss was about.
England lost in the semi-finals of a European Championships on home soil, they didn’t play particularly well in three of their five matches, and despite the soundtrack of that summer, football did not ‘come home’.
But those of us who recall that campaign masterminded by Terry Venables, will never underestimate its transformative feel-good effect on the English game.
That tournament included the only five competitive matches Venables ever took charge of as boss of the Three Lions.
Yet his death at the age of 80 is a time to salute his extraordinary influence on what was to follow.
At a time when the Premier League was in its infancy, English football emerged from the dark ages, embracing tactical flexibility and individual flair.
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And England’s campaign reignited a wider national passion for football, even though it ended up producing perhaps the most agonising of the ‘oh so nears’ Frank Skinner and David Baddiel had sung about in that summer’s anthem ‘Three Lions’.
In 1996, nobody believed England could not just defeat a team as technically excellent as Holland but play them off the park in a 4-1 victory which was the national team’s finest performance in three decades.
And nobody was convinced that Paul Gascoigne could illuminate a major tournament again, as he had six years earlier at Italia 90.
But the magnificence of his goal — and his celebration — against Scotland was a distillation of everything Venables stood for, football as joy.
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There were others who had a guiding fatherly influence over that wayward Geordie maestro, such as Sir Bobby Robson or Walter Smith at Rangers.
But none commanded the trust and affection of the greatest English footballing talent of his generation quite like Venables did — during Tottenham’s run to their most recent FA Cup triumph in 1991 and at those Euros five years later.
Gascoigne, and Venables, had been vilified in the build-up to the Euros after many of the England team were involved in an infamous drinking session in a Hong Kong nightclub.
Against that backdrop, Gazza would score his greatest goal, against England’s oldest rivals Scotland, and mark it by replicating the ‘dentist’s chair’ episode, lying with his arms outstretched while gleeful team-mates squirted water into his mouth.
Four days later, a tactically-flexible England wiped the floor with the Dutch — Alan Shearer, Teddy Sheringham and Gascoigne all supreme.
In the semi-final against Germany, England would be just as good but lose in gut-wrenching fashion on penalties, with Gareth Southgate the only man to fail from the spot.
Venables’ managerial career was two penalty shootouts short of genuine greatness.
England would surely have won the final against the Czech Republic had they succeeded against the Germans.
And a decade earlier, Venables’ Barcelona side would have become European champions for the first time had they not failed in another spot-kick competition following a grim goalless final against Steaua Bucharest.
After leaving QPR for the Nou Camp in 1984, Venables would always be known as El Tel — a nickname which encapsulated him perfectly.
Here was an Englishman who would win the Spanish title. An East Ender, a nightclub owner, a song-and-dance man . . . and a rascal.
No other England manager has ever divided opinion in the press as greatly.
Venables had firm favourites and sworn enemies on Fleet Street.
Was he a managerial genius or garrulous East-End wide boy? Probably both.
Yet those who played under Venables — characters as diverse as Gascoigne, Tony Adams, Gary Lineker and Southgate — were unanimous in their love and respect for a great man-manager and tactician.
Southgate, England’s most successful manager since Sir Alf Ramsey, played under some fine bosses but Venables has always been the man he references most.
Venables, like his great forebear Ramsey and his Euro 96 skipper Adams, was a Dagenham boy. Ramsey’s 1966 World Cup-winning captain Bobby Moore was from neighbouring Barking.
These towns on the borders of Essex and the East End were the cradle for so many of England’s finest footballing moments.
Brought up in the tough post-war years, Venables was a midfielder good enough to play twice for England and win the FA Cup with Spurs.
But it was as a coach and a manager that he truly excelled — first of all working under another larger-than-life coaching legend in Malcolm Allison at Crystal Palace, then as a promotion winner at Selhurst Park and Loftus Road.
After three successful years at Barcelona, he took over at Spurs and guided them to their 1991 FA Cup triumph.
Gascoigne inspired that Cup run, including a memorable free-kick in a Wembley semi-final against Arsenal.
But in the final against Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest, he was carted off on a stretcher after his horror challenge on Gary Charles, and received his winners’ medal in his hospital bed.
Gascoigne would only fully emerge from the shadow of that injury when Venables had him again at Euro 96. After failing in a Tottenham takeover bid, Venables moved upstairs to the boardroom — striking a deal with new owner Alan Sugar to become chief executive.
But the pair fell out and Venables lost a bitter court battle before he took the England job.
Venables was not the archetypal FA ‘safe pair of hands’ and his relationship with the governing body was brief and unhappy.
He had been surprisingly overlooked for the England job in favour of Graham Taylor in 1990 and was refused a new contract before his only tournament.
Glenn Hoddle was announced as his successor before Euro 96 began.
After England, Venables never again touched greatness. There were spells as boss of Australia, Palace again, Middlesbrough and Leeds, as well as a return to the Three Lions set-up as an assistant in the doomed regime of Steve McClaren.
But since Southgate heralded England’s current golden age, the influence of Venables has been hugely evident.
His was a career of majesty and controversy, of triumph and agony, but his legacy is undoubted.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
