Barry Venison

Barry Venison (born 16 August 1964) is an English football coach, former professional footballer and sports television pundit.

As a player was a defender from 1981 to 1997.

He played for Sunderland, Liverpool, Newcastle United, Galatasaray and Southampton.

He was capped twice by England.

Venison had originally made his debut for the Black Cats, aged just 17, on 10 October 1981 in the 2–0 league defeat to Notts County at Meadow Lane.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.

He played 13 times in the league that season, as Liverpool finished sixth – the first time since 1981 that they had not been league champions or runners-up.

They did win the FA Cup by defeating Venison's old club Sunderland 2–0 at Wembley.

However, he was not included in the squad, and with Liverpool now managed by Graeme Souness, who had succeeded Dalglish a year earlier, it appeared that Venison's future now lay away from Anfield, particularly after the form of new signing Rob Jones at right-back.

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.

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.

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.

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

The recent Double winners paid Sunderland £200,000 for Venison's services on 31 July 1986, with a view to him becoming a long term successor to the ageing right-back Mark Lawrenson.

Venison made his Liverpool debut on 16 August 1986 in the traditional curtain raiser at Wembley, the Charity Shield, Liverpool faced derby rivals Everton, who had lost out to the Reds in both the previous season's League and FA Cup campaigns.

The usual high tempo game ended in a 1–1 draw with both clubs sharing the shield.

He featured in 33 out of 42 league games that season.

Venison was a League Cup final loser again in his first season at Anfield, when Liverpool were defeated by Arsenal in the 1987 final.

He was also denied the chance of league title glory as the Reds were beaten into second place in the league by their neighbours Everton.

He played 18 times for Liverpool when they secured League championship in 1988, losing just two out of 40 league games.

However, the emergence of fellow young defender Gary Ablett meant that Venison lost his place in the team.

He was also hampered by injury and was unavailable for that season's FA Cup final, which Liverpool unexpectedly lost to Wimbledon.

The next season would see Venison's first goal for the club, it came on 29 August 1988 in the 4–1 thrashing of Nottingham Forest in the quarter finals of the Centenary trophy.

Venison featured in more games but with fewer starts, often named as one of the two permitted substitutes.

Venison, along with his teammates, supported the bereaved families of the Hillsborough disaster in April 1989, attending a number of the funerals, he then played his role as Liverpool reached the final of the FA Cup again.

Dalglish brought him on as an extra-time substitute as Liverpool defeated Merseyside rivals Everton 3–2.

Liverpool later lost the League title in a decider against Arsenal at Anfield after Michael Thomas scored the winner with virtually the last kick of the whole season.

Venison was on the bench again.

1990 saw Venison play 25 times in the league and earn another championship medal as Liverpool secured their 18th top division title.

During the following campaign Venison only managed a total of 14 appearances in all competitions, however, this did include another Wembley appearance as Liverpool faced bitter rivals Manchester United in the Charity Shield.

Liverpool had to share the trophy as they drew 1–1 with their North West rivals.

Venison scored what would be his only league goal for the Reds on 31 March 1992, netting the side's final goal in a 4–0 win over Notts County.

Following retirement, he became a television pundit and most notably worked on ITV Sport's The Premiership between 2001 and 2004 whilst the network held the rights to show Premier League highlights.

In 2016, he was given his first head coaching role at Orange County Blues, succeeding Oliver Wyss.

Venison was born in Consett, County Durham.

He played for England at youth and under-21 level in his early days.