The former England, Barcelona and Tottenham manager has died aged 80.
I owe to the personable Terry Venables some memorable times together during which his colourful insights provided me with the material for two books of mine that came to be enjoyed by fans around the world-The Hand of God and Barca.
It was Venables that told me how he resigned himself to losing Diego Maradona from his squad soon after taking over the management of FC Barcelona in May 1984.
While there had been speculation that Maradona hated the English because of the Falklands War, and that Venables didn’t fancy handling a player of such stature, both missed the real story , according to Terry.
The main reason, Terry told me, was that Maradona, one of the highest paid players in the world already at the time, was in financial difficulties, because as he put people were ‘sponging off him ‘.
The club had gathered evidence through its own internal investigation , but Venables only realised how critical the situation was after he made his own further enquires.
Venables discovered there were hundreds of unpaid bills all over town, most of which had been spent not just by the player but by members of Maradona’s extended family of friends and assorted hangers on.
“Maradona had been practically bled dry and the only solution was for him to secure the kind of money that a transfer would bring. Giving him £1,000 a week pay rise wouldn’t have begun to solve the problem” , Terry recalled.
Venables had succeeded the Argentine Cesar Menotti as manager at Barca. While Menotti had managed Argentine to World Cup victory in 1978, without Maradona, the player later caught up with the coach at Barca following the 1982 World Cup in Spain.
Unlike Menotti, Venables in 1984 was not a big name outside his own country, let alone well known to Maradona. Menotti told me: “Terry got to Barcelona thanks to me. Most people hadn’t heard of him.” And Menotti had heard of Venables thanks to a British journalist he had befriended, Jeff Powell of the Daily Mail.
“I talked to Powell and asked him which English manager is competent. Barca is a team of important players. He mustn’t be a dictator. He must be able to win over the players.’
Powell recommended Venables. According to Terry, Bobby Robson and Doug Ellis also put in a good word on his behalf with the Barcelona president Núñez.
The subject of Maradona figured prominently in Venables’ first interview with the Barcelona directors. “ They wanted to know what I wanted to do with Maradona, whether I wanted him to go or stay. I was left with the feeling that the directors really wanted Maradona to go and were hoping that, once I heard the full story, I would think the same.”
Venables took time before delivering a final verdict of his own. Other players he talked to were almost to a man positive about Diego. But in a subsequent conversation Venables had with Maradona (Venables had taken some Spanish language lessons and was able to communicate), had the Argentine surprisingly candid about his situation, confessing that his time at Barca had turned sour , not least with Núñez who he despised, and he wanted to quit.
“From what Maradona said to me I felt that the situation in Barcelona if he stayed would become very very difficult. The damage was perhaps irreparable.”
Venables decided not to argue the case for Maradona staying at Barca. The picture he had gathered was of an immensely talented player who could no longer be trusted to show loyalty and deliver at the club, both because of his hatred of Núñez and as a result of his financial problems.
The fact that Maradona was facing a three-month suspension at the start of the new season because of a match punch-up with Athletic Bilbao players in the Copa del Rey final was also put into the equation.
Venables ‘s decision to push for Steve Archibald as Maradona’s replacement , initially received with scepticism by local fans, turned into a good news story when ‘Archigoles’ as the Scotsman became nicknamed , contributed to taking the Catalan club to its first Spanish league victory in eleven years.
Terry would never forget the celebrations. As he told me: “ I witnessed how the streets of Barcelona filled with the colours of Barca and the colours of Catalonia. What I learned that day was that the people of Barcelona can show themselves more than willing to assert their sense of community, which is almost tribal, but which is more like one giant fiesta,a ritual of engagement that is set instinctively in the collective subconscious.”
Under Venables or El Tel as some familiarly came to write about him, Barcelona also reached the 1986 European Cup Final, the first appearance by the club in a European Cup Final since 1961 although they lost to Steaua Bucaresti in a penalty shoot-out. The defeat, combined with Barca losing the Spanish Cup and ending up once again behind Real Madrid in the League that season, had some disillusioned Barca fans redubbing ‘the Historic Dream’ of the club’s revived fortunes-‘the Historic Nightmare’ of the club’s underachievement.
By the start of the 1986-7 season, Venables had been joined by Gary Lineker who had been transferred from Everton and had emerged from the World Cup in Mexico as the tournament’s lead goal scorer .
It was Venables who introduced Lineker and his then wife Michelle, to his and what became their favourite Barcelona drinking and eating haunts. This included a beer bar at the top of the Ramblas, and a beach club, south of Barcelona along the coast which served excellent seafood.
When I interviewed Lineker for my book Barca , he was already pursuing a post-playing career as a successful BBC TV sports commentator. I recalled how Gary’s eyes lit up when he recalled his life as a player in Barcelona, as if these had been some of the happiest moments of his life.
“I love the place. It’s got everything-charm…a fabulous location-mountain on one side, beach on the other…We had such a wonderful life when we lived there. I’d train in the morning, then go to the beach or into town and have a big lunch, followed by a siesta from five until eight. Then about ten, most nights, we’d go for dinner, It was such a lovey relaxing life style…”
Lineker’s contentment off the pitch during his first season at Barca mirrored his success in footballing terms. Nicknamed ‘El Matador’ ,for nearly a year he maintained a goal ratio of one every two games, scoring twenty-one goals in fourty-one games in his opening season at FC Barcelona.
And yet during the 1986-7 season, Lineker’s goals were the only bright spot Barca fans perceived in a period that was marked more by loss than by achievement.
The team failed to deliver a title, and Venables ‘El Meester’ bowed out officially on 23rd September 1987 having secured what is thought to have been a not ungenerous pay-off during a series of meetings with Núñez and his vice -president Gaspart.
I met Terry a few times after he had moved on. He retained, as most fans did an enduring interest in Maradona, and was only too happy to have me bring his ex-manager Jorge Cysteszpiler he had known in Barcelona, one evening to his night club in Kensington.
But in was back in Spain, whether greeting guests at Hotel Escondida (Hideaway in Spanish) in Alicante, or catching up with a game at the Nou Camp and meeting up with old friends that he seemed to be at his most relaxed or as , as they say in Spain,’como en su casa.’
Que en Paz Descanses, Meester Terry!
Terry Venables : 6 January 1943 – 25 November 2023
