Sadness befalls today on hearing the death of Terry Venables aged 80 after a long illness. Here pictured with my son ( left wing ) in the Royal Garden Hotel London ( coincidentally where England team celebrated their 1966 Workd Cup victory. Terry was a soccer hero and played for Chelsea , QPR and Tottenham managing later Barcelona and England.. At Chelsea I cleaned his boots alongside Jimmy Greaves ( featured in a previous blog post).
Terry was married for 32 years to his wife Yvette and they were one of the happiest couples I ever met. In Chelsea I once found that we were bidding against each other for a house in Chelsea and unbeknown and unfortunately I ended up buying it. Years later Terry and I laughed for it was one of the worst moves I ever made. Terry also made mistakes in his private business career and again like me he could look back with humour.
He was a character and a gentleman. Many will now talk of his sporting abilities and I recall him telling me that he played at every level for England from schoolboy to senior. His biggest disappointment was losing to Germany at Wembley in Euro 1996. I was there that night and it was devastating as we lost on penalties.
I remember hero worshipping him as a young man seeing him as number 10 glide through the pitch with swan like elegance at Stamford Bridge home of Chelsea. His ability to be exemplary at spot free kicks preceded Beckham and he was a true maestro. Of course his biggest victory was his marriage and Mrs Yvette we pray for your comfort at this time.
I shall never forget the night of 23rd May 1996 when in the Workers Stadium Beijing China played England wining 3 goals to nil. It was a very hot evening and Terry who was Manager led the team out. As he did I in the crowd caught his eye and we waved to each other thinking we were a long way from Chelsea. Terry wondered what on earth I was doing there. I knew what he was doing of course but little did he know then why I was there. Life will always connect the dots.
Goodbye Mr Venables I don’t know how long it will be before we see each other again. So much respect for the Venerable Venables. It was moving to see him headline the news today and be held in a minutes silence at Tottenham today ahead of their game. RIP Mr V.
qbitblogger 