Barry Venison

Sunderland

Venison was born in Consett, County Durham. He played for England at youth and under-21 level in his early days. He started his club career in his native North East with Sunderland and set a record when he became the youngest captain at a Wembley cup final when, aged 20 years and 220 days, he skippered Sunderland against Norwich City in the 1985 League Cup final in place of the suspended Shaun Elliott. Unfortunately for both Venison and Sunderland they lost 1–0. Venison had originally made his debut for the Black Cats, aged just 17, on 10 October 1981 in the 2–0 league defeat to Notts County at Meadow Lane. He went on to play in 20 league games that season scoring one goal in the process. The steady and reliable right full-back settled into first team football well at Roker Park and became a firm favourite in 1983–84, when he missed just one league game. At the end of the 1984–85 season, the same season in which they had reached the League Cup final, Sunderland were relegated to the Second Division. After Sunderland's failure to win promotion in 1985–86, Venison asked for a transfer as his Sunderland contract neared expiry in 1986, so he wrote to Liverpool as that was the only team he wanted to play for. By the end of the 1985–86 season he had made a total of 205 appearances for the Wearsiders; 173 of them in the Football League. He had scored two goals.

Liverpool

It was Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish who acted quickest and duly offered him a…

Venison had been selected to represent England at under-21 level on 10 occasions from 1982 until 1986. In 1994, aged 30, Venison was picked to represent his country by new coach Terry Venables. The call-up came as a surprise, not least to Venison, but he played well in both of his full international appearances. His debut came on 7 September 1994 in the 2–0 friendly victory over the United States; his only other appearance for his country came on 29 March 1995 in a 0–0 friendly draw with Uruguay. Both games were played at Wembley.

Liverpool

Football League First Division: 1987–88, 1989–90 FA Cup: 1988–89 FA Charity Shield: 1986 (shared), 1988, 1989, 1990 (shared) Individual

Newcastle United Player of the Year: 1994–95