Barry Venison

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. [ 4 ] Venison had originally made his debut for the Black Cats, aged just 17, on 10 October 1981 in the 2–0 league defeat to Notts County at Meadow Lane .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. [ 4 ] 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. [ 4 ] 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. — Wikipedia