Terry Venables will forever hold a special place in my memories. You will immediately think I’m going to start talking about Euro 96 but that isn’t the case.
To give you context, I have to go back further than that, to one of the most significant days of my career.
It was November 16, 1994, and 25 minutes into a friendly against Nigeria at Wembley, Rob Lee had got injured. Terry called me over, told me how much faith he had in me and told me to go and enjoy myself. That was him to a ‘T’ — a brilliant man-manager, always able to fill you with confidence.
Please don’t make the mistake of assuming, though, that an England camp under Terry was some kind of free-for-all, where the players could do what they wanted and he was just someone who was one of the group having a laugh.
The thing I remember most about Terry was his intelligence, his ability to subtly tweak and change formations and tactics through a game, never mind from one game to another.
He was ahead of his time in the way he saw football and clever with the way he got the best out of people.
He put faith in our squad, treating us maturely. Yes, he’d let us have a few beers through camp during Euro 96 but this didn’t have anything to do with caving into demands. This, I learnt later in my career at Real Madrid, was something he had picked up in Barcelona.
I found it to be the case in Spain that managers had no anxiety about putting the emphasis on players to self-police situations.
They were far more relaxed and dealt with us like adults rather than imposing rules and regulations. If you put trust in people, you find they want to pay you back.
How I wish we could have paid Terry back by winning Euro 96. You are judged as an international footballer in tournaments — friendlies and qualifiers don’t build reputations, believe me — and that wonderful summer was by far the high point of my 37-cap international career.
Terry was in the spotlight going into that first game against Switzerland — I wouldn’t say he was well treated by certain parts of the media — but he never once got flustered and even, after that opening 1-1 draw, he set a brilliant tone. I say without fear of contradiction he was admired by everyone.
His staff were fantastic: Ted Buxton, Bryan Robson and Don Howe more than played their part but Terry was the driving force and his influence dictated the way our campaign mapped out, the highlight being what we did to the Netherlands when beating them 4-1.
Running around those wide open spaces, knowing how and where everyone would be on the pitch, was incredible; one of those rare moments in football when you feel unstoppable.
He wanted me to enjoy playing for England and, that night, the enjoyment was off the scale.
We probably should have won the tournament.
To learn of his passing, then, was incredibly sad. I hadn’t seen him for a while and it’s a reminder that you have to keep in touch with the people who mean something to you.
Thank you for the memories, Terry. I can’t speak highly enough of you.