Former Wolves Favourite A Hall Of Famer Out East
Mark Venus (far right) on the attack in a 1993 Wolves friendly at Crewe.
Mark Venus has become the third ex-Wolves player to be inducted into Ipswich’s hall of fame.
The long-time utility defender, who still has his main home in Suffolk, was honoured along with former team-mates David Johnson and Richard Naylor in the Sir Bobby Robson Suite at the stadium at which Vitor Pereira’s side play in two days’ time.
His 338 games while at Molineux from 1988 to 1997 leave him joint 26th in the club’s all-time record appearance-makers’ list but he had successful times at Portman Road as well.
He was part of the squad who won promotion to the Premier League under George Burley in 2000 and was a key figure in the fifth-place top-flight finish the following season.
Venus was voted Ipswich’s player of the year in 2001-02 – a season in which they were relegated but also went through two rounds of the UEFA Cup before losing to Inter Milan.
Having moved to East Anglia in a swap deal involving Steve Sedgley, he totalled 191 matches for Ipswich, scoring 19 goals.
Veno in more recent times.
He signed for Cambridge in the summer of 2003 but had by then forged a firm enough relationship with his defensive partner, Tony Mowbray, to sew the seeds for their long association in the dug-out.
His induction last weekend came while Albion, where he now works with Mowbray, were in East Anglia preparing for their Championship game at Norwich.
His Portman Road team-mate, Johnson, used to live in Newport, Shropshire, and scored 62 goals in 158 Ipswich games. His son, Brennan, now plays for Tottenham and Wales.
In the Ipswich hall of fame, Venus joins Ray Crawford, who was named along with Ted Phillips, Mick Mills and John Wark in the first batch of inductees on the opening day of 2007-08, and Danny Hegan. The midfielder was inducted in 2016, a year after his death.
Ray Crawford carries out the captaincy duties at Ipswich in April, 1964 during his impressive Wolves stay.
Another posthumous award came last weekend when Scottish winger Frank Brogan – a key figure in the Bill McGarry team who won the Second Division title in 1967-68 – was indicted.
Crawford remains Ipswich’s top marksman of all time with 227 goals in 353 appearances across his two spells at Portman Road.