FOOTBALL HAS LOST ONE OF ITS GREATEST CHARACTERS: CAPTIVATING, CHARMING FASCINATING AND ALWAYS WITH A TWINKLE IN HIS EYE

Venables threw the greatest party at Euro 96 and now the tributes pour in for this wonderful character who has died at the age of 80

- MIKE WALTERS

TERRY VENABLES always knew his chorizo from his hot dogs, but in his glorious incarnation as El Tel at Barcelona, the only thing he missed was pork sausages.

Whenever Malcolm Allison, his long-time coaching mentor and collaborator, came to visit him in Spain, Venables had only one request.

And so it was that Big Mal, struggling on a gossamer-thin budget at skint Middlesbrough, would greet his lifelong friend in the Catalan sunshine armed with a string of bangers from El Tel's favourite butcher back home.

Somehow that sizzling garnish on his breakfast plate, the missing ingredient to make his Spanish adventure complete, was a crowning glory of Venables' high life at the Nou Camp.

Not only was he the last English coach to win La Liga, but as a leader of men he was the Full English: Captivating, charming, fascinating, always with a twinkle in his eye.

Now that twinkle belongs to constellations among the grand old game's finest coaches in the celestial dugout, and football has lost one of its greatest characters. Venables, the former England coach who threw a great party at Euro 96, has died at the age of 80 following a long illness.

Under weeping skies at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, the grief among one of his old flocks was almost tangible.