The Lemon Fool

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Terry Venables will, I strongly suspect, always be my favourite England manager.

Results are one thing in football, but so is the joy of the game, and I don't think I'll ever see an England manager with as clear a love of the beautiful sport than Venables, or one that can inspire that love and joy into an England side that often seem to need it more than most.

I don't think I've read a better article this weekend on Venables than the Times one linked below, which includes a great photograph showing how great men can inspire people across the generations -




Article source - https://archive.is/hGZo3

The above photo is taken at the end of the 1986 European Cup semi-final between Barcelona and Gothenburg, where Barca came back from being 3-0 down in the first leg to then go on to score three at home in reply and then win the tie on penalties.

The name of the young Barcelona ball-boy on the left?

Josep Guardiola...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Class act.
Pure class actually..
and that's from one the opposite of English

Never met him, but equally I have never met anyone in the game that had a bad word to say either. In my industry that's pretty rare I would say

RIP Tel.

Like millions of people around the UK and the world, I played alot of football as a youngster and have watched alot over the years. Consequently, I'm one of millions who probably think they know the game pretty well.

Every now and then, you get an analyst/pundit who grabs your attention because they articulate something about the game you'd not really appreciated before. I remember seeing Venables an analyst for one of the tournaments (not Euro 96 obviously) in the 90s and he was sat across a coffee table simplifying the delights of different systems: 442, 433 etc. Captivating and simple. Can't remember the tournament, but you don't often get quality coaching input in the pundit stuff.