The Coaching Genius of Ex-QPR Player/Manager, Terry Venables Profiled

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Nice article about the brilliance of Terry Venables as a coach at QPR (and Crystal Palace). (And the article doesn't even mention the tactical impact of Venables even when he was still a player - Some of those Venables free kicks when he was still a QPR player)

Richard Williams/The Guardian - Saturday September 2, 2006
Secrets of 30 years in the Venables laboratory

Not many people outwitted Brian Clough, but Terry Venables did. It happened almost a quarter of a century ago, and the Venables-inspired free-kick with which Queen's Park Rangers got the better of Nottingham Forest one Saturday afternoon in the early 80s encapsulates all the streetwise inventiveness that Steve McClaren will hope to get from his 63-year-old assistant as England begin their Euro 2008 qualifying campaign today.

"Absolutely," John Gregory replied this week as he was reminded of an incident that forms a telling snapshot of the Venables effect. Gregory, then a member of the QPR midfield, had positioned himself next to the defender on the right-hand edge of Forest's four-man wall as Mike Flanagan prepared to take a direct free-kick from 10 yards outside the penalty area. A couple of seconds later Flanagan's low drive was whistling into the corner of the net, having passed through a gap where the defender no longer was.
As Flanagan celebrated with his team-mates, Gregory ran over to the bench. Approaching the applauding Venables, he grinned and drew his forefinger across his throat. Job done. Another dividend from those hours spent on the training ground. "You just wheeled him round," Gregory continued, reflecting on the defender's unscheduled disappearance. "We spent an hour on things like that every Friday."
In those days Venables' training sessions were like laboratory experiments. "He was a really deep thinker and he was always looking to innovate," Gregory said. "We always practised free-kicks and sometimes you needed to be Einstein to understand what was going on. We spent hours on them. He was very meticulous, but it was always enjoyable."

Not a few people were dismayed by McClaren's decision to persuade the FA to allow him to recall a man whose contract as head coach had not been renewed after England's semi-final exit from the 1996 European Championship, because of a disapproval of his commercial adventures. Even his admirers recognise his sometimes dangerous addiction to risk, summed up by Jim Cannon, a member of his Crystal Palace team of the late 70s, who fondly described his former coach as "a wide boy, always looking for a deal".

But those who distrusted Venables were shouted down by those who had actually played under him, and who regard him - with rare unanimity - as possessing one of this country's very few exceptional football intellects. "Terry opened my eyes to things that no one else has," Gareth Southgate, a member of the Euro 96 squad, said on hearing of his recall. "He has fantastic tactical awareness. Every senior player in the group went away having learnt a lot from him, which is an achievement."

The secrets of Venables' success as a coach are not simple, but they are straightforward. He treats his players well, he gets them to enjoy themselves and, most profitably of all, he engages their minds.

"I was 27 years old when I signed for QPR," Gregory said, "and I'd spent about a week in pre-season training with Terry Venables when I suddenly realised that although I'd been in the game for 11 years, I'd never been coached.

"He occupied your brain. Everything he did was so imaginative. In the four years I was with him, he rarely repeated coaching sessions. There was always something new, and it made going to work feel exciting. And he wasn't a dictator. It wasn't 'my way or no way'. He'd throw ideas back to you and invite you to have your say."

By the time Venables arrived at QPR, he had already nurtured Palace's team of young stars. Among them was Kenny Sansom, later an England full-back, who remembers the excitement and enthusiasm radiating from a coach not much older than his players.

"He had a great bunch of lads at Palace then," Sansom said. "Good players, and good listeners, too. We all had big ears at that stage, and Terry could make young players feel capable of doing anything. We wanted to learn, and we were being taught by someone who wanted to be a great coach.

"And he was always like a friend. He'd tell you stories about his own early days in the game, about the things he got up to as a lad, and he could make you listen, like a great singer or a comedian can. He could be your friend on a Saturday night when you were out having a few drinks, but on Monday morning you'd call him Boss. That's a hard thing to bring off."

On the tactical side, both Gregory and Sansom emphasised Venables' debt to the Liverpool of the 1970s. "He stole the offside game from Liverpool," Gregory said. "We even practised it in five-a-side games every day, so that it would become a habit. And then George Graham, who was a youth-team coach at QPR under Terry, took it to Arsenal very effectively."

Sansom remembered another aspect of that influence. "There was the gamesmanship side as well. He taught us how to do that. Not cheating. But if the ref gave a decision against you, you'd get four or five of your players round him. Then there was a good chance that the next decision might go in your favour."

The diligence of Venables' tactical preparation also impressed Sansom. "I'm a pundit now, and when you look at throw-ins and free-kicks, what you see is very few people working on them. Terry would have us working on throw-ins deep in our own half, to make sure we got the ball up the field more efficiently. We'd practise things at free-kicks and then we'd try them on a Saturday. Not if we were two-nil up, mind you. Then he'd say, 'Don't use it - save it for another time.'"

Southgate, now managing Middlesbrough, is convinced time has not eroded Venables' ability to impart his knowledge. "The England players will learn an enormous amount from working with Terry, and I'm sure Steve will as well."

Andorra might not be much of a test of his tactical skills, but by the time England return from Zagreb next month the nation should have a better idea of the old master's ability to rise to the challenge once again. Meanwhile, a memo to Croatia: watch out for those free-kicks.

Guardian