August 8 - Venables’ Old Boys FC | On This Football Day

UNDOUBTEDLY one of England’s best recent performances was the 5-1 thrashing of Germany in Munich in 2001. But, can you name who started in the perennially problematic left sided spot in Sven’s midfield?

Yes! That’s right, Nicky Barmby was the latest player to prove he was not the answer to the Three Lions south paw difficulties in Germany that night, but one man still never lost faith in the midfielder and today in 2002 Terry Venables paid £2.75m to bring him to Leeds United.

Venners had of course been brought in by Peter Ridsdale to steer the good ship Leeds into the Champions League after David O’Leary had failed to do just that. A surprise choice for the job, Venables had not really done much since leading England to the semi-finals of Euro 96, save for failing to get Australia to the World Cup and holding Bryan Robson’s hand at Middlesbrough for a couple of months.

Once in the managers office Terry reacted to having to the problem of having to sell some of his best players like Rio Ferdinand with the solution of panicking and buying all his favourite players from five years previously. In came Paul Okon and Barmby as Tel tried to turn back time to when either of them were actually any good.

Barmby had first played under Venners at Spurs, his first club, and had since had spells at Boro, Everton and Liverpool. Unfortunately things did not work out at Elland Road for Terry or Nicky, with Venables sacked in March 2003 as Leeds officially became a crisis club.

In February 2004 Barmby was farmed out to Nottingham Forest on loan. “I’m delighted to have a player of Nicky’s quality on board with us,” said Forest boss Joe Kinnear at the time.

“He has got a great pedigree and he’s enthusiastic to play for Nottingham Forest, and his record of international appearances speaks for itself.

“So does the fact that he has been involved in transfer deals totalling almost 20 million pounds.”

He eventually returned to Hull City, his hometown club where he expected to play out the final days of his career in comfortable obscurity. The highly competitive anyone-can-beat-anyone nature of the Championship has ruined these plans, with Hull promoted last season, earning Barmby an unlikely last stab at top-flight football.

Watch the clip below if you want to cheer yourself up. More from us tomorrow, and here is what we had to say this time last year.