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.
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.
Club career
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Venison had originally made his debut for the Black Cats, aged just 17, on 10 October 1981 in the 2–0 league defeat to Notts County at Meadow Lane.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.
In the early 2000s, Venison launched an on-line sports memorabilia auction site. The company "bid4sport.com" was a not-for-profit company and raised money for charities. Julie Venison was also involved in Bid4sport providing business support and book-keeping for the venture. The company was initially based on the outskirts of Romsey before expanding and moving to premises to the west of Fareham. The venture was created with the help of friend and co-professional Brad Friedel. Venison sold Bid4sport shortly before his family relocated to the United States.
Venison moved to the United States in 2003, firstly to Laguna Beach, and then Los Angeles. He worked in property development for a short time, before his friend Oliver Wyss, convinced him to return to football. Venison became Technical Director of Orange County Blues, before succeeding Wyss as head coach to see out the 2016 USL Pro season.