When retirement beckons for a footballer, there are a few very well-trodden paths for their second act. If they’re chatty and charismatic (cynics might say that’s not always a prerequisite), it’s presenting and punditry; if they want to keep a hand in the game, it’s coaching and management. Terry Venables, who has died at the age of 80 after a long illness, did both – but beyond that, his post-pro career was filled with more unexpected side hustles.
Some, such as his fondness for singing Sinatra covers and his stint as the owner of the Kensington members club Scribes West (where he’d often be found belting out said Sinatra covers on karaoke), are well-documented; others, like his forays into writing detective novels, which eventually inspired an ITV series (more on that later) and creating his own board game, less so. The former England manager, who very nearly brought football home back in 1996, was a bit of a polymath. “I couldn’t envisage a situation where football took up every minute of my adult life,” he admitted in Born to Manage, his 2014 autobiography. “It meant everything to me, but I found I could be successful at that and still be involved with other things.”
