EL TEL THE MAN WHO HELPED TO LAUNCH FourFourTwo

Terry Venables was the cover star for FFT's launch issue in 1994 a year after his death, former players pay tribute to one of the finest managers Britain has ever produced

- Ed McCambridge

Some folk can’t help but dream of a warmer sun. “Coaching in Brazil is something I’d love to do one day,” said one such romantic in the late summer of 1994. “But I’d miss the sausages.”

Throughout his career, Terence Frederick Venables was a man a step ahead of time. And so it was when FourFourTwo sat down for a chat with its inaugural cover star – the new England manager, still two years away from leading his nation out at an apostolic Euro 96 – that our subject already had half an eye on caipirinhas on the Copacabana.

Sitting in Scribes West, the Kensington members’ club he owned with his wife Yvette, Venables got a lot off his chest that day, as he spoke to assistant editor Olivia Blair for the first issue of FFT. His hopes of winning the tournament on home soil: “I don’t see why we can’t, and the World Cup after that.” His resentment of the British press: “They exaggerate and that breaks players, just look at Gazza [Paul Gascoigne] – it’s become a circus of devastation.” Even a desire to see the Premier League trimmed: “We have to be strongest at the top with a super league of 16 teams.”

Had he chosen a different path, Venables could just as easily have been sitting with the NME that afternoon. A talented singer, the Dagenham lad spent his mornings training with Chelsea’s academy and evenings crooning for local swing band The Happy Tappers. An interjection from his Blues coaches, who implored the youngster to focus on his football, ultimately led him to FFT but a love for the limelight never left him. A picture of a young Venables, sticking his tongue out, was famously used on the front cover of Morrissey single Dagenham Dave.