Full Description
If there was a year when English football exploded into the public consciousness it was 1996. It was the summer when the phrase "Football's coming home" echoed from car radios, when Alan Shearer and Paul Gascoigne orchestrated England's campaign in the European Championship that captivated a nation.
At the centre of it all was Terry Venables, managing England in what, remarkably, was his only international tournament. He was not the most successful man to manage England, but he was unquestionably the most interesting.
As a manager and coach, he was startlingly successful. He was 39 when he took Queens Park Rangers to an FA Cup final, 43 when he steered Barcelona to their first La Liga title in a dozen years. An estimated one million people cam on to the city's streets to welcome the team home from the airport. The tributes on his death in 2023n spoke of a man of enormous achievements who might have achieved very much more.
Next summer, a World Cup summer, will mark the 30th anniversary of Euro 96 when interest in that team and the man at its centre will peak once more.
