Venables, who was the heartbeat of the exciting young Chelsea team in the first half of the 1960s, sadly passed away in 2023. A few years before that, in 2016, we caught up with ‘El Tel’ to find out his recollections of playing alongside the prodigious young Osgood…

Such was the instant impression made, it's clear Terry Venables remembers the day as if it were yesterday, when in fact it occurred a little over half-a-century ago.

The venue was Chelsea Football Club’s then training ground next to the Welsh Harp Reservoir in north-west London. Wembley’s twin towers were visible and not far away, and there was a constant hum from the traffic on the nearby North Circular Road.

The occasion was the first time a 17-year-old hod carrier, who until recently had been playing amateur football in the Windsor area, was told to train with Chelsea’s first team. His uncle had written in and secured a trial for a teenager oozing potential but lacking belief he could be a top professional.

The uncle was right and Peter Osgood rapidly made the right impact in the junior ranks. Now came the opportunity for a small taste of the big time, the chance to share a training pitch with the first team players. This was a high standard, as Tommy Docherty’s young Chelsea side were in the upper reaches of the top division and an emerging and exciting force in English football.

‘I can see it now,’ Venables instantly responds when asked to recall the day he saw Osgood in action for the very first time.

‘We were all good players at young ages in and around the first team at that time, and there was this guy who was walking over to where we were playing. Dave Sexton [Docherty’s assistant], who was running the training, said to him to get on.

‘Peter was really thin and really tall and we were looking around and thinking, “Who is he?” He looked a bit ungainly.’

• Find out more about Peter Osgood's Chelsea story

Those disparaging thoughts were very quickly banished when Docherty’s Diamonds watched the unpolished gem take control of the ball. Venables takes up the tale.

‘After about 10 or 15 minutes, from thinking, “Who is he?” I am now thinking, “WHO IS HE?!” This guy is unbelievable! He was like a player from another planet; he had everything.’

The Chelsea players quickly asked another question: Where had this player been? They could not believe someone of his ability could have been left playing football on the parks of Berkshire to this age without being snapped up by a major club.

‘I was the captain at that stage and Ossie was soon a permanent fixture in the team,’ continues Venables.

‘He was very talented and learned how to be tough. He was like Mike England, who was at Tottenham around the same time, in that they were both about 6ft 2in and were not prepared to take any nonsense on the pitch from anyone.

'Peter could score all sorts of goals as he was fast, two-footed, good in the air and quickly became a real character - the legend that everyone knows.’

Naturally, the goals burn brightest in the memory and Venables joins many in recalling one strike in particular from the early Ossie seasons, scored up north in January 1966.

‘We played away at Burnley and the mud was thick, you could hardly run, but Peter got the ball in the centre-circle and the next thing we knew it was in the back of the net. He went around everyone, including the goalkeeper.

‘It is sad there is no film of that goal, just like there isn’t for most Jimmy Greaves goals, as he was phenomenal as a goalscorer.’

Another shame for Chelsea followers during the Osgood era was that he was capped just four times for England by Alf Ramsey. So would Venables, who after World Cup-winner Ramsey, is up there with Bobby Robson and Gareth Southgate as having managed England to the semi-finals of a major tournament, have given Ossie more caps?

‘I certainly would have persevered with him,’ says the man who was in charge of the national team during the memorable Euro ’96 campaign.

‘Sometimes players have one or two caps and they don’t go any further. I was one of those. You don’t get a chance to feel your way into it; you have to perform straight away and sometimes that just does not happen. But I would certainly have tried to do everything I could to get the best out of Peter for England because he definitely had the ability.

‘But he had a great career as a Chelsea player and we are talking about someone who everyone still knows. He is a household name even outside Chelsea.’

Inside Chelsea and away from the pitch, Osgood became a big character.

‘Peter was fun,’ remembers Venables. ‘He always had a gag, enjoyed mixing in with the players and enjoyed his football. We had a great bunch of young players and it was a pleasure to be with him. It wasn’t like football when it is just a job you get paid for, it was like family but then I left it to go to play for Spurs.’

An increasingly strained relationship between manager Docherty and his former captain brought an end to Venables’ Chelsea career just a few months before Osgood’s was put on temporary hold by a broken leg.

Venables was probably quietly relieved his former team-mate was not able to take part in the 1967 FA Cup final when Tottenham beat Chelsea.

Osgood returned an altered player from the one they all marvelled over when he first came to the club. A little heavier and a little less quick, he was stronger and even harder, and lost none of his flair for the eye-catching and the imaginative. And he scored goals. Lots of goals.

He did get the better of Venables in the FA Cup during the famous, goal-laden run to winning the trophy in 1970. Chelsea made the short trip to Queen’s Park Rangers in the quarter-finals and our star centre forward scored a hat-trick.

‘QPR were a second division team back then and that day he was brilliant,’ praises Venables.

‘Chelsea beat us good and proper. That was a good Chelsea team, with Ossie and Ian Hutchinson upfront, Alan Hudson behind them and so on - the team everyone knows about.

‘There is no doubt about it. Peter was a massive talent, he was always funny and I have very fond memories of him.’

- We will continue our celebration of Osgood tomorrow by focusing more closely on the early part of his Chelsea career, and detailing the times he skippered the Blues...