By Myles Palmer
Peter Ridsdale employed George Graham for two years but learned nothing about the art of keeping his mouth shut.
Graham is a shrewd politician who never says too much.
Ridsdale is a superfan-chairman who ALWAYS says too much.
He is now echoing the noises that Spurs chairman Irving Scholar made in 1988, when he came back from Florida and told us that, “Terry was No.1 on a shortlist of one and he’s the best coach in the world and I’m the happiest man in the world.”
For me, it’s deja vu.
I’ve been here before and heard it all before.
IT BRINGS BACK A FEW MEMORIES, a few moments which were almost lost in the memory banks.
I made Venables very angry one night at Spurs by questioning his tactics.
I’ve met him many times, from his QPR days to England training sessions, but that was the only occasion I ever saw him get mad.
Can’t remember the game now, it’s too long ago. But I recall the conversation vividly.
PALMER :”Why did you have Chris Waddle doing all that donkey-work? The keeper throws the ball out to him in the right back position and he’s got three men round him! By the time he’s beaten those three men he’s knackered and he is still 70 yards from their goal.”
VENABLES (furious): “It’s NOT donkey work! Chrissie got in the box, scored one goal, almost scored another but he slipped. His starting position doesn’t matter, as long as he gets in the box.”
We had a difference of opinion that night.
I can also recall the night I stopped believing his spiel.
But I cannot remember whether this was before or after the row about Waddle.
Spurs played Monaco in a friendly and were thrashed.
It was during the French winter break and he said something absurd, something like, “We played really, really well, but then they scored three in ten minutes.”
IT WAS A MEANINGLESS MATCH, BUT I NEVER TOOK VENABLES SERIOUSLY AFTER THAT NIGHT.
I immediately stopped going to Spurs and stopped writing about them in The Scotsman.
The rumours from the training ground put me off.
People said Tel was only there for ten minutes a day, that Gazza and Paul Stewart used the groundsman’s lawn mowers as dodgems, that Ruddock wore bin liners under his tracksuit to sweat off his excess blubber, and so on.
CHRIS WADDLE went to MARSEILLES, played thirty yards further up the field, and laid on dozens of goals for PAPIN.
Waddle became a hero in France doing what I thought he should have been doing for Spurs.
Later Tel coached England and had five or six players in midfield and drew most of his games.
I did not think he was a tactical genius then, either.
ENGLAND were lucky to scrape a 1-1 draw with Switzerland in the first game of Euro 96.
But they were very good the night they beat Holland.
I had been in the press box for every Engand game at Wembley since 1982 and that 4-1 win was the best they had ever played.
PETER RIDSDALE’S QUOTES ARE AMAZING FOR TWO REASONS:
ONE, they show that Ridsdale is still a big, daft fan.
TWO, he makes it clear that agents now run football.
I will not embarrass the poor chap by quoting all of his groupie gush, but he said :
“I had lunch with Terry on Saturday and, within 10 minutes, so infectious was his enthusiasm he had me believing I could play for England……
“Players respect Terry, coaches admire him and I firmly believe that we have got the VERY best.
“You could not possibly go through the entire Venables CV – both as a player and a manager – without arriving at the conclusion that he is supremely well qualified.
“Managing Leeds is a big job. A huge job. It is therefore not surprising that, when the position here became vacant, there were many names in the frame.
“But the one name which jumped out was Terry Venables.
You talk to anybody in the game – players, managers, coaches – and they are almost unanimous in their verdict that Terry is the best coach and manager in the game.”
Regarding Rio Ferdinand and agent Pini Zahavi, he said:
“This was simply the first opportunity I have had to discuss Rio with his agent since the speculation
began. I won’t know Rio’s views until I have spoken to him personally, but his agent was extremely complimentary about Terry Venables and also said he understood that Rio would be impressed.”
So the Leeds chairman is saying : Rio’s agent thinks I’ve hired a good manager!
Surely it is a chairman’s job to imply that clubs and managers run football, not agents.
Mainly, this bizarre news signals a marriage of convenience.
Chairmen always panic when they lose a manager. They feel naked.
The first day without a manager seems like a week.
The second day seems like a month. They worry. They can’t sleep.
They are terrified by not having a manager, and by the prospect of choosing the wrong one.
After 11 days without a manager, Ridsdale was a nervous wreck, a candidate for the intensive care ward.
He clung to Tel like a drowning man. When Tel said he would save Ridsdale’s life for £2 million, Peter was ecstatic.
He was as euphoric as Irving Scholar had been in 1988.
It wasn’t Peter Ridsdale who said all those silly things, it was euphoria.
I bet Leeds will draw nine of their first 15 games.
9th July 2002.