Remembering QPR’s Terry Venables – Preview Tuesday, 28th Nov 2023 12:48 by Clive Whittingham A sombre atmosphere sure at Loftus Road this evening for the visit of Stoke as QPR fans come together to remember one of the club's greatest ever managers. QPR (2-4-11 LLLDDL 23rd) v Stoke (6-3-8 WWWDDL 16th)Mercantile Credit Trophy >>> Tuesday November 28, 2023 >>> Kick Off 19.45 >>> Weather – Damp, windy >>> Loftus Road, London, W12 A few years ago, while doing the tourist trek in Barcelona, I decided to do the horribly obligatory thing of whipping a QPR shirt out for a picture at the side of the pitch in the Camp Nou. A security official was on me in a flash and I prepared my very best Spanish apology for crossing the velvet rope or treading on the hallowed turf or showing another club’s jersey in Mecca or whatever it was I was supposed to have done wrong. No. Of course no. He was coming to talk to me about Terry Venables. For 25 minutes. Venables was poached by Barcelona from QPR on the recommendation of Bobby Robson, who the Catalans giants had tried to appoint for a second time and would eventually get in 1996. That sounds utterly preposterous now – Neil Critchley is still waiting for the call – but it was pretty surreal back then too. Venables would be gone within weeks from the notoriously demanding and, at that point, success-starved club, or so went the common consensus. In the end he lasted more than three seasons, winning the club its first La Liga title in 11 years in his first. They reached the European Cup final in his second, via a semi-final comeback from a 3-0 first leg deficit against Goteborg, and were a heartbreaking penalty shoot-out defeat against Steaua Bucharest in Seville away from winning that trophy for the first time. Barcelona lost Diego Maradona, replaced him with Steve Archibald, and got better. Some coach. It's that you’ll have heard about this week, following Venables’ death at the age of 80. Or, perhaps, his subsequent spell at Tottenham, where they won the FA Cup and finished third in the league in the early 1990s. Or Euro 96, of course, and the destruction of Holland on the way to another devastating penalty shoot-out loss, to Germany this time at the semi-final stage. The business dealings that overshadowed his later career and led to a courtroom bust-up with Alan Sugar during his time at White Hart Lane. The showmanship, and the love of singing. Danny Baker told a story about how he’d always have a glass of champagne waiting for you when you arrived for a night out: “Where you bin, this is getting stone cold.” Smooth all the way up and down, you can hear him saying the words. The Guardian’s football podcast had an episode this week dedicated to Venables, and spectacular overhead kicks following Alejandro Garnacho’s effort for Man Utd at Everton on Sunday, and the only mention QPR got was Sebastien Coates’ goal for Liverpool at Loftus Road (a game we won). I know we tend to get airbrushed out of these things now we’re no longer in The Best League In The World ™ but that’s quite a difficult thing to do even if you were trying to do it deliberately, because of course Trevor Sinclair, but also because QPR had twice been something of the making of Venables. In 1969 he dropped down a division to join the R’s after relationships soured with Tottenham manager Bill Nicholson and described it as a transfer “blessed with so much good fortune”. He was part of a QPR team that built steadily in the Second Division, ultimately winning promotion to the top flight in 1973 under manager Gordon Jago. By this point Venables was already honing his craft as a super-coach-in-waiting by taking the training sessions, and his trick free kick routines with Gerry Francis and others became legendary. When he returned to Loftus Road as manager from Crystal Palace in 1980, bringing half the team with him from the financially stricken Eagles, Rangers had once again dropped back into the Second Division. In a situation not dissimilar to the one Marti Cifuentes finds himself inheriting now, Venables quickly built a team that reached an FA Cup final replay with Tottenham, won promotion back to the First Division, finished fifth in its first season and qualified for a UEFA Cup campaign. With the ball, going forwards, they were exceptional. Without it a ruthless offside trap led by Steve Wicks and others was, at times, unplayable, inspiring the fledgling coaching career of George Graham who was coaching the junior ranks at Loftus Road at that time and later went on to win the league title with Arsenal. Terry Fenwick, who scored for Rangers at Wembley in the first game with Spurs, told the Open All R’s Podcast: “I think he was the best manager in British football, if not the world, for over a decade. He was a great man manager and a great coach - and of course that doesn't often come hand in hand. You've got some great man managers out there that are not particularly good coaches, and vice versa - some good coaches that are not good at managing people, but Terry had it all." It’s a widely held belief among fans who followed the club at that time, and the players who played for it, that a tilt at the First Division title could/would have followed had Venables not left for Spain. By this time Venables, nothing if not versatile, was writing detective novels with Gordon Williams, named Hazell after his QPR teammate. He’d opened a Chelsea clothing boutique, high end private members clubs, several pubs, a ticketing agency. This time next year Rodney, we’ll be millionaires. John Gregory - who Venables told in the Second Division he’d play for England, and was right – recently told the Under The Cosh Podcast he’d never played for anybody better before or since, miles and miles ahead of his time, with the sort of training sessions now common place in 2023 but being conducted in an era of three laps of the pitch and then five-a-sides. Gregory also said he’d perhaps got into too much stuff other than the football. He left most jobs apart from ours with a degree of acrimony, or controversy. Leeds, Palace and Portsmouth both collapsed into financial mire amidst his involvement later in his career. Venables had been in negotiations to buy QPR from Jim Gregory way back in the 80s with the backing of a consortium. When Gregory heard Barcelona were in for his manager he laughed and said “good luck”. Gregory had a trick when players and managers came looking for contract extensions of laughing them out of his office, then getting his secretary to call them back in just as they went to walk out. When he tried it with Venables he just kept walking. Whether his team would have gone on to fulfil its potential, and grow into a force under him, as many suspect, we’ll of course never know. You suspect he’d have known there was no extra time to come in Belgrade though. Another one of those ‘what might have been’ sliding doors moments for our club.
Fans from the time have been sharing their memories on our message board all week. “Very sad news. He was one of a kind. When he left for Barca, you just knew that things would never be the same. And they weren't. The memories just roll back. For me, chanting "Terry Venables' Blue and White army" at Highbury in '82 as we reached our first FA Cup Final was fantastic. Halcyon Days indeed. A great player, our greatest manager and a lovely person. Remember how he comforted our players after that Cup Final Replay that we really deserved to win? Or when he comforted Gareth Southgate after that penalty miss in '96? Bottled up his own disappointment to comfort others. That was the kind of man he was. But as someone said: Nobody really dies as long as we remember them in our hearts.” -StJude82 “Can I share a true story with you. When I was a teenage sprog , just starting to go to away games, I was travelling with some fellow fans on a train from Paddington to Swindon, for, I think, the first game of the season, when word reached us that the team were on the same train in the buffet car. Plucking up the courage, I walked down the train with my autograph book in hand. Reaching the buffet, I walked up to Rodney Marsh, in awe, who unfortunately told me to go away (different words!) so I turned and started to walk back along the train. I got halfway back and felt a tap on my shoulder - turned and it was Terry Venables. He apologised and explained that Rodney was tired (!), asked me for my autograph book and said he would get ALL the players autographs for me. “That 82-83 season we went to Sheffield Wednesday, who were in the promotion hunt, annoyed the home fans by continually catching the Owls offside and won the match 1-0. The next day one of the Sunday tabloids stated we trapped them 27 times! How we could do with such a well drilled defence today. Then on the run in we kept winning and it seemed as though Tony Sealey and John Gregory scored in every game, including the 2-0 at the Fulham Broadway ground. I can vaguely remember the trophy presentation at home, (against Fulham, I think). We finished ten points clear of second place Wolves.” – FrancisBowles “His QPR manager years coincided with my early years of going regularly to games: always felt we were going to win 4-0 at home as it seemed a regular score back in those days! Tight at the back but goals as well: perfect. Had the tactical nous to grind out away wins as well when necessary. Great manager for England as well: so unlucky not to win Euro 96. No England manager has been at his level since and it’s a real pity his term was a short one.” – Ned Kennedys “The Francis free kick was devised by him and actually worked a few times up until it was executed in a match that was covered by The Big Match, where it was forensically examined and could never be used again. He was one of the great footballing brains, and I stand to be corrected, but I believe he was the first to introduce the "signalling" system at corners and free kicks, (I'd never seen it before). My enduring memory of him was in 1982 not long before the final we were away at Barnsley and if we'd won still had a fair chance of promotion. Myself and some others decided to drive up. Needless to say we lost, but on the way back we pulled into a service area where we were met by the sight of the team coach. Seeing our scarves Stevie Wicks comes over and invites us on board. TV is at the front with a glass of Champagne and the biggest cigar I'd ever seen. He asks: ‘what did we think of the game?’, which we told him wasn't great (or words to that effect), so he then asks ‘ah but were you up at Newcastle in the week?’ (we'd won 4-0, I think), I straight away replied: ‘Newcastle, on a Wednesday night, you do realise that some of us have to do a proper job to go to!?’ “Used to call our crowd who stood on the halfway line in the paddock as ‘the strangely dressed characters’. When for some reason Gregory changed his mind about selling the club to TV was the biggest opportunity lost for our club to have been something. All the reserve and combination teams winning and developing players under him. George Graham was the reserve coach. Loved watching his team following them home and away. Destroyed teams playing great attacking free flowing football when we had the ball. When we didn’t you know how that worked. So proud to be a Rangers fan back then as I’m sure you all know there wasn’t many of us with home gates in the 10,000. Rangers in a FA Cup final, unbelievable it really was. Very influential man on my love for the game. Thank you.” -CharmR “I watched TV play for us and my immediate memories upon hearing this very sad news were based on those days. One of his trademark free kicks was to toe-lift the ball over the defensive wall, that included Gerry Francis, who would have anticipated it and received a ball in space, right in front of goal, scoring at least one goal that I can remember. When a friend accompanied me to an afternoon home game (power restrictions operational), he observed that TV seemed to manage to get in a position where every move was played through him, intercepted quite a few as well like a magnet. Often his contributions were undramatic but always an important cog in the team engine.” -HantsR “What a mix of emotions. Desperately sad news to come home to on a dark winter's day after having been out all day in the rain. But also so many great memories, memories of the football but also of the person I was, the people I knew; some still friends, some I've lost contact with, some passed on. I suppose 80 is a decent age but somehow he always seemed ageless - mature beyond his years as a young player, still more forward-thinking than most English managers long after he retired. “The first time I saw Terry , I fell in love. It was 1967 and there was a picture of him in the Paper, holding the FA Cup, Spurs beat the scum. I remember standing in the Boys Enclosure in front of the Loft, watching him play for us. The pitch always seemed like a mud patch, but he seemed to ping the ball all over the place. As far as I aware, he is the only player EVER, who has played for England in every available age group, including England Amateurs. The really sad thing about his career as a manager, is he turned up at Barcelona when a certain Diego Maradona was there. It was shortly after the Falklands War. Maradona was in his prime. But it was never going happen that he played for an English Manager at that time. So Maradona went to Italy. But if he had stayed… We would have been privileged to see the best player in the world… Managed by the best Coach in the world…. Rest in Peace Terry. Sleep easy…” – Zico “The chipped free kick. Thanks for the memories Tel - shine on.” – NGB “I met Terry Venables in 1974 - when I was 11 years old. I was very lucky to be invited into the players' guest room after the last game of the season. It was against Leeds, and was the highest ever attendance at Loftus Road. My godfather knew Terry Mancini - who invited us. I will never forget chatting to the likes of Stan Bowles, Dave Thomas, Gerry Francis, and of course Terry Mancini. All great players and characters. But when Terry Venables walked into the room he had everyone's attention. The man was so charismatic - and funny too. I got a ball signed by all the players. I was crestfallen when he was sold to Palace, but so delighted when he came back as manager. I remember being outside South Africa Road the night Tommy Doc was fired. Terry Venable was there too - and I remember saying to him 'When are coming back to us' - not realising the deal had already probably been done! RIP a giant of the football world - and one the charismatic people I ever met.” -RichRanger “Not one for the memories and recollections but I was in his club, Scribes during Euro 96, basically free-loading off a mate who was a member. I was desperate for a leak and went to the gents. Unzipped and aimed and in walks Tel and takes the trough beside me. 45 seconds of awkward silence and nary a dribble from me and a veritable Niagara Falla of pìss from him and he chuckles "stage fright eh?" to which I gabble something incomprehensible about him being a QPR legend. He obviously knew I was on the lam in there and as much a paying member of Scribes as I was of the Bullingdon club but he didn't give a monkeys.” – GroveR “Woke to this news this morning, what a sad way to start the day. Terry was the first manager I knew at Rangers having been dragged along by a cousin to watch the Watford game after we'd won the Highbury FA Cup Semi (I think there were vouchers available that meant he could get tickets to Wembley?) - I fell in love immediately and just thought it would always be like life was in the early 80's. That hasn't really played out that way, and you really only realise when you look back how good the team Tel built was, and just how forward thinking he was. And to have a manager that was looked at enviously by other clubs...what days they were.” -BrisbaneR “Loved Terry - in terms of English managers he was light years ahead of his time. Allison, Clough and Venables led the way in innovative coaching and tactics, but sadly our game got bogged down while the continentals flew past us in terms of technique. You could probably argue that even now there has not been an English manager since who has been so tactically smart as Venables. I got to meet him once, spent most of an evening with him in fact, and it was fantastic. Humble, interesting, friendly, charismatic, funny, charming, generous. It was brilliant. A really fond memory of mine. Got him to sign my QPR flag, which is reserved only for the total greats.” -Antti “RIP Terry. IMO he sits alongside Gordon Jago on the top tier of Rangers managers. To this day I'm still convinced we would have won the FL if he hadn't moved to Barcelona. Imagine writing that Barca poached the Queens Park Rangers manager! Something for Martti to aspire to! TV aslo provided me with one of the best months of supporting the R's. October 1983 we conquer East Anglia! A superb display in a 2-0 win at Ipswich was followed two weeks later with a 3-0 victory at Norwich. Heaven for those of us living in the area. Thank you Tel.” -TerryB “During the 40-odd years I've supported this club there have been many lows, lots of them, but I don't think I'll ever feel as bad as I did that day when I saw in the newspapers that he had gone to Barcelona. I didn't begrudge him one bit that he went but we were really in with a good shout of actually winning something and it all fell apart that day. I'd been going to games about three years at that point and it was really something special that was happening. That's how much he meant to the club and all of us.” -Juzzie “Greatest Manager in my time supporting Rangers. Met Terry once. Was out with my cousin and a couple of others for a slap up meal at a plush curry house (Bombay Bicycle Club). We were steaming through the food and lager, fortunately it was all on my cousin's expenses! Half way through our meal, Terry came in with an attractive woman and proceeded to sit at a nearby table. After a couple more pints, I plucked up the courage to go over to his table. As it was just after his spell as England Manager, no doubt he thought I wanted to talk about that. I started with "I'm a massive QPR fan". His face lit up and and he smiled that big smile and we proceeded to talk about Rangers for the next 20 minutes- much to the disgust of his dinner companion! As I knew he would be, he was warm, witty, intelligent and a true gent.” -TeddRanger “My favourite QPR manager. Even as a young child it was clear to see that what I was witnessing was light years ahead of the competition. To take a 2nd division outfit to the FA Cup Final, promotion (a full 10 points clear of Wolves in 2nd), and then 5th in the top flight (10 points clear of Arsenal in 6th and just 1 point behind Man Utd and Forest) was outstanding in itself but it was the manner in which it was achieved that made it all the more pleasing. Genuinely gutted when he left and unsurprised when QPR unravelled thereafter. Can you imagine Barcelona coming in for an unknown English manager now? That was the mark of the man and 'El Tel' duly delivered their first La Liga title in over a decade. The joy and optimism that Venables later brought to England supporters in 1996 recycled the emotions he'd stoked as QPR manager.” – Benny QPR’s current manager Marti Cifuentes will lay a wreath prior to a period of applause ahead of kick off tonight at Loftus Road. A place that became all the richer for Terry’s influence and involvement, a world all the poorer without him. One of our club's greatest ever - we'll always treasure what was, and wonder what more might have been. Links >>> Stoke stalling – Interview >>> Five-goal thriller – History >>> Linington in charge – Referee >>> Bircham for mayor — History >>> Doughty in charge — Referee >>> Stoke City official website >>> Stoke Sentinel — Local press >>> The Oatcake — Message Board >>> The Wizards of Drivel — Podcast >>> Every Step Along The Way — Podcast Below the foldTeam News: QPR welcome Paul Smyth back from his one match suspension for yellow card accumulation. Jake Clarke-Salter made it back as far as the bench as an unused substitute against Norwich on Saturday, and given Jimmy Dunne’s part in the winning goal you’d think it likely he’ll be back into that left centre back slot if not tonight then on Friday at Preston. Reggie Cannon is back training but wasn’t risked at all at Carrow Road – he’d make a big difference playing on the right side of the defence in this system. Stoke’s problems are in attack. It’s three games without a goal now for the Potters following the weekend 3-0 home loss to Blackburn Rovers. Tyrese Campbell, whose promising career continues to be blighted by injuries, made his latest comeback with 15 minutes off the bench at the end of that game and is pushing for more here after missing two months of football. Andre Vidigal, one of 19 summer signings by Alex Neil, started the season with five goals in his first six outings but hasn’t scored since September 24 and was an unused sub against Rovers having been hauled off early in prior 0-0 draws with Coventry and Cardiff. Ryan Mmaee, another of the summer intake and another who’s lost his place recently, is also pushing for a recall. Celtic loanee Sead Haksabanovic is absent with a groin issue. Medium term absentees Ben Wilmot and Lewis Baker won’t be back in time for this trip. Elsewhere: Through a 12-game winless run, QPR are being kept in touch with the rest of the Championship only by the incompetence of a select band of other misfits. Sheff Wed are firmly bottom of the table, with one win from 17, six points to our ten, and a pathetic eight goals. They’ve failed to score in 11 of their last 15 Championship outings. You’d be surprised if much of that improved on Wednesday night when they welcome Champions Leicester to Hillsborough. Rotherham are two points ahead of us, but have also only won two of their 17 games and one of the last 12. With no manager yet in situ, they head to Hull on Tuesday night looking for a first away win of the season. The Millers have one point and three goals from eight away games this term, and it’s more than a year since they last won away from the New York Stadium – a 1-0 at Sheff Utd, 23 games and 15 defeats ago. Huddersfield are fourth bottom, six points off in the distance, having only won three times all season and once in their last 11 (no prizes for guessing who that was against). They’ve got a tough Wednesday night slog up to Sunderland. Even this early in the season it feels like it’s going to be three from those four and that was only exacerbated by the weekend results. Wayne Rooney’s Birmingham City finally got their first victory since the rebrand, albeit only at home to hapless Sheff Wed, and they now head to Blackburn. Plymouth once again showed that, for all their issues, there are plenty of goals in their team and that’ll be enough to keep their heads above water – a weekend victory at home to Sunderland now followed with a trip to Coventry who halted their own losing run with a surprisingly emphatic victory at Millwall on Saturday. The Lions, now back down to eighteenth, go to Ipswich on Wednesday. Swanselona are next above them, in seventeenth, ahead of a trek to Leeds. Rounding out the midweek set with the games we haven’t mentioned: West Brom go to Cardiff and Boro host Preston Knob End on Tuesday; Southampton host Bristol City on Wednesday. Referee: James Linington was in the middle the last time QPR won at Loftus Road, 1-0 against Watford, 13 games and eight months ago. Details. FormQPR: Marti Cifuentes awaits his first win in charge after two draws and a 1-0 loss at Norwich. Ilias Chair’s goal in the 1-1 at Rotherham is the only one scored under the new manager so far. It means, as we prepare to enter December, Rangers haven’t won in 12 games going all the way back to September 4. Both victories in the Championship have been away (Cardiff and Boro) leaving the R’s without a home win in eight attempts this season and a club record 13 overall going back into last. They’ve failed to score in four of their eight matches at Loftus Road so far. Here comes the bit where we copy and paste that paragraph and add one to all the bad bits again… Since we beat Reading 4-0 at Loftus Road at the end of January 2021 to push into the Championship’s automatic promotion picture we have won just 19 out of 89 matches and lost 47. At home we’ve won just eight of 40, losing 22. Since we topped the Championship exactly a year ago by beating Wigan 2-1 at home we’ve won just six times in 49 games, losing 31; at home we’ve lost 17 out of our last 23 and won only once in a calendar year. This season it’s two wins from 18 overall, and six defeats and a two draws from eight at home. We are currently on a club record run of no wins in 13 home games and are yet to win at home this season. We haven’t scored three goals in a game in 50 attempts going back more than a year. We have scored more than one in a game only five times in our last 48 attempts. The last time we came from behind to win was against Reading at home on October 7 last year, 52 games ago – since then we have recovered just three points from losing positions and are winless in 30 games when conceding the first goal. This is one of those fixtures that seems to favour the away side. QPR’s 1-0 win at whatever Stoke call their ground these days in April is one of seven the R’s have managed there in our 14 visits since it was opened. Rangers have won three of their last four visits to the Potteries. By contrast the Ebere Eze-inspired 4-2 comeback in 2019/20 is our only victory against this opposition at Loftus Road in seven attempts and the R’s are winless in this fixture in the last three seasons. Since this fixture was rekindled after a 12-year absence in 1996/97 there have been 15 meetings in W12 and Rangers have won only five of them, and just one of the last seven. Stoke: Since relegation from the Premier League back to this level in 2018, Stoke have finished in the bottom half of the Championship for five consecutive years. Their final league positions in that time have been 16th, 15th, 14th, 14th and 16th and, despite 19 new arrivals in the summer, they come into this match 16th in the Championship once more. QPR’s 1-0 win their in the penultimate game of 2022/23 was one of 12 home defeats suffered by the Potters – the only team in the league to lose as many home games as we did. It's been another campaign of fits and starts to this point. Three wins from the first four league games against Rotherham, West Brom and Watford suggested that massive overhaul in the transfer window might have done the trick. Alex Neil walked out on progressive Sunderland to join stagnant Stoke presumably because he felt he’d have more wedge at his disposal and having spend the close season putting his team on the field here it apparently was. They then won one of their next eight league games, losing five and failing to score in four. Just when you thought they were out they put three consecutive victories on the board against high flying trio Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Leeds. But they’re now winless, and scoreless, in three against Coventry (0-0), Cardiff (0-0) and Blackburn (0-3). Alex Neil’s side are 2-2-4 away from home so far. Stoke have been struggling to score goals of late with none in three games or their last 323 minutes of football. Only Huddersfield (15), QPR (11) and Sheff Wed (six) have scored fewer than their 16 overall. But if you’re looking for the stick-on Charity Park Rangers goalscorer bet then look no further than Dwight Gayle. The former Newcastle front man, who will be earning a small fortune here, hasn’t scored in 11 appearances (four starts, seven sub apps) or any of his last 18 outings going back into last season. Since joining in the summer of 2022 Gayle has scored three goals in 48 games and with two of those coming in one rout of Sunderland in March it means he’s failed to score in 46 of his 48 appearances for the Potters. He’s 11/2 first or last and 5/2 anytime tomorrow. Prediction: We’re once again indebted to The Art of Football for agreeing to sponsor our Prediction League and provide prizes. You can get involved by lodging your prediction here or sample the merch from our sponsor’s newly extended QPR collection here. Let’s see what our reigning champion Aston got for us this week… “These games are coming thick and fast at the moment. I'm not sure what to make of Stoke, they went on a very good run recently and I rate Alex Neil very highly. But they have dropped off again and maybe this is a chance for us. We do need to put the ball into the net though. I think this is going to be the day.” Aston’s Prediction: QPR 1-0 Stoke. Scorer – Sam Field LFW’s Prediction: QPR 0-0 Stoke. No scorer. If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via our PayPal account loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk. Pictures — Ian Randall Photography The Twitter @loftforwords Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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