If I Can Dream: The Life of Terry Venables

Description

If I Can Dream is a richly detailed biography of English footballing icon Terry Venables, telling the story of his playing career, managerial successes (and failures) and fascinating life away from the pitch. 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 2023 spoke of a man of enormous achievements who might have achieved very much more. In this World Cup summer, with the 30th anniversary of Euro 96, interest in that team and the man at its centre will peak once more. If I Can Dream will feature interviews with every available major figure in Terry Venables’s life.