Venables' superb gesture for struggling Tottenham star summed him up perfectly

02 December 2023 , 20:30

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Venables' superb gesture for struggling Tottenham star summed him up perfectly

When you move to one of the biggest clubs in the country it can be a case of sink or swim. But if you need evidence of Terry Venables ’ priceless ability to make players believe they belonged at the top, then Darren Anderton can provide it.

He wasn’t on the pitch at the time. Instead, the former England man was in the bath of the White Hart Lane dressing room, shortly after arriving at the club from Portsmouth in a deal worth almost £2m.

“We were losing 1-0 and off I came again, it was probably the fifth or sixth time in a row he had taken me off,” says Anderton. “Go and have a bath, he said, so I went down the tunnel and five minutes later he walked into the changing room. He asked me if I was OK, and I didn’t really know what to say.

“He just said ‘you’re doing great – you're 20, you’re going to be here for a long, long time and you’re going to have a great career – this is all part of it’. Then was a roar from the stadium and we had obviously equalised. But he didn’t even flinch. He’s the manager of that team and we had just scored but he didn’t react at all.

“He was a guy who cared, he was just a great human being. That's the biggest thing for me, as a coach there was no-one better, as a man-manager there was no-one better but as a man? He really was as good as it got. The warmth of character, his sense of humour – you just loved being in his company."

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Darren Anderton (No.11) would go on be a crucial member of Venables' Euro 96 squad (Getty Images)

Within a few months of that dressing room chat, Anderton felt at home at Spurs – on and off the pitch. Venables, meanwhile, would soon be picking him for England too, with Anderton going on to become a key member of his Euro ‘96 squad.

It’s that tournament that Venables is best remembered for. In particular a 4-1 drubbing of the Netherlands on a golden evening at Wembley.

“That was Terry at his absolute best,” says Anderton. “That wasn’t just any Dutch side, they had so much quality, but we just annihilated them. For the last half an hour of that game, we were just floating on air listening to the crowd belting out ‘Football’s Coming Home’.”

That campaign, of course, would end in heartbreak against the Germans as Gareth Southgate missed a penalty and England tumbled out of the tournament in the cruelest fashion imaginable. The lessons learned, though, have stayed with the current England boss.

“I think Gareth took in everything that was great about Terry’s style of management,” he says. "He turned us into a club and I think Gareth has done that with this England side too. Winning next summer’s Euros would be the perfect tribute to Terry.”

Richard Edwards