Venables confident of a fitting finale

Terry Venables is in his last month as England coach, whatever happens in Euro 96. Ken Jones found him in buoyant mood as the moment of truth finally arrives

Sure, Terry Venables had felt angry and disappointed, but you do not hang to a job at all costs, certainly not at the expense of pride and independence. "At first it was upsetting to think I wouldn't be going on to that next level of a World Cup,'' he added, "but I'm comfortable with the decision now. Not at all unhappy.''

Once it was taken there was no going back, no real sense in considering tentative suggestions put later to Venables by the Football Association, the last time shortly before Glenn Hoddle was given the opportunity to succeed him.

All over, in fact, from the moment Venables walked disgustedly out of the meeting he had in a Birmingham hotel last December with senior FA officials. "By then it was common knowledge that I wasn't happy with the situation. I didn't know exactly about the court cases coming up after Euro 96 but two years into the job I wanted to know where I stood. Whether I was going or staying. I'd told Graham Kelly that there were a couple of things I wanted sorting out. Money didn't come into it. I simply wanted to know what they had in mind for the future, and we agreed to talk in Birmingham at the draw for the championships.''

At breakfast on the morning Venables met with Kelly, the FA's ageing chairman, Bert Millichip, and the chairman of the Senior International Committee, Noel White. He came across some pointed remarks from White in a newspaper, which left him fuming. "I know there had been a lot going on, a court case and "world exclusives" about me in one of the tabloids that no other paper found important enough to follow up, plenty of speculation, but Noel White at least could have taken the trouble to speak to me before making statements which, from my point of view, were entirely negative.''

White's claim that he had been caught off guard by a reporter did not wash with Venables. "I stressed that the job was hard enough to do, trying to build a team, dealing with the media, without fighting your own. I said the next thing is the players will be at it.''

When Venables asked White to explain publicly what he meant by supporting him only until Euro 96, he got no satisfaction. "He went on about me not having any competitive games. Competitive games! I've had competitive games all my life. It was fairly obvious that they wanted to wait and see how England shaped up in the championship so I said 'I don't do auditions', and left them to it. Some people seem to have the idea that I was trying to call their bluff. But that's bollocks. They could have appointed a manager three months before they did because it was made clear that I wouldn't change my mind. And, let's have it right. Money didn't come into it. I took the same salary as Graham Taylor. I didn't care about the money.''

No sooner had Hoddle's appointment been confirmed than Venables began to receive offers, although not from Chelsea: a vacancy, now filled by Ruud Gullit, that would have appealed to him. "It's the only club I played for that I haven't managed and I'll always have a soft spot for them,'' he added.

Significantly, Venables is now less enthusiastic about taking total control of a football club. "It isn't that I think I can't do it,'' he said. "I believe I had it right at Tottenham because we did well on the field and the club made money. But it turned out that I was at the wrong place. What I needed was the support of someone who thought a lot of me, like Jim Gregory, say, who taught me so much when I was with him at Queen's Park Rangers. But I had to experience all that to find out more about myself, to realise that coaching and team management are the things I do best.''

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon and we were sitting in the dining room of a hotel alongside the Thames at Marlow, watching the river tumble over a weir. Venables had on casual clothes and held a cigar. His mood, at 53, was one of calm reflection. "I've been very lucky with what I've had going for me,'' he said, "and now I'm more driven towards football than I've ever been. I'm not interested in other sports anymore. These past couple of years with the England team have given me the chance to study the game internationally, think of ways to make progress, and to know that the players are interested is tremendously encouraging.''

The Venables I knew earlier was eager, alert, combative, restless, sometimes sombre but always charged with extravagant vitality. I do not sense a great deal of change in him. "I've never paid much account to age,'' he said. "The important thing is attitude. Frank McLintock and John Hollins were still playing in the old First Division at 38 because they wanted it a lot more than guys whose careers finished much sooner. One of the first things I did as England coach was to involve Dave Sexton with the Under-21 team. When someone at the FA grumbled about Dave being 64 I said: 'I don't want him to play'.''

The fancy deepens. Before taking on another task, can Venables provide English football with its first major championship in 30 years, and only the second in history?

Expectation puzzles rather than troubles him. ''A year ago practically everyone, including a lot of the professionals, said we weren't good enough. Now they seem to think we have an excellent chance. Whatever people think, I'm convinced we are on the right lines. Probably, we could make a good show simply playing to our traditional strengths but recent history, the failure of our best clubs in European competition, emphasises a need for change, that a lot of what we've grown used to doing won't work anymore.

"All right. You know your percentages and your people but it is no guarantee that the team will win. And, as always, you have to win or come close. If it goes wrong some of the criticism is sure to be a mix of ignorance, arrogant presumption and glib distortion.''

Venables ponders long over the selection of his teams because he wants as much information as possible. ''The longer you look the more you learn,'' he said. "It's like passing through a town. The walker sees more than the motorist. And of course, players have to be convinced. They will always smell out a bullshitter, the manger who is only pretending.''

Nobody could accuse Venables of ignoring the game's fundamental values. If drawn to developments in the Netherlands he argues that football, like life, keeps repeating itself. "It's about adding things here and there and making sure that your thinking doesn't stagnate. That's what has happened to some of the old European football powers like Poland and Hungary."

That Europe provided seven of the quarter-finalists in the last World Cup suggests to Venables that Euro 96 will be the more difficult competition. "With teams like the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Portugal in there it will take some winning, but I've told the players that we're going to give it a real go and they appear to be comfortable with all the things we have been doing. I've got a good staff, the spirit is tremendous and I smell a lot of optimism. From the first minute I've been working towards the pattern we have now, but in any case it is all about being adaptable.

"I persisted with split centre forwards when people were saying I must have two. I introduced wingers, which was part of my policy at Tottenham, altered the midfield slightly and then set about the defence. I haven't complicated things. If a team plays three up against us we go to a conventional back four. If they play two up we use three defenders.''

It is more than that, of course. Coaches plan but they don't play. They impart knowledge and wisdom but it all comes down to initiative, a man's wit, his sense of glory.

And for Venables? "Who knows?'' he said. "I'm not in any hurry. I'll take a break after the championship to think about where I'm heading. There are offers on the table and people are pressing me for a decision, but I can't imagine getting involved in anything that isn't linked with football.''

A man is in trouble if he has a hope of something that deep in his heart he thinks improbable. Not, we can be sure, how Venables feels about the European Championship.