Terry Hennessey obituary: footballer who nullified Eusébio

Brian Clough liked his teams to play “football on the carpet”. To do so he needed defenders who could control the ball and pass. Clough’s assistant at Derby County Peter Taylor told him to buy Terry Hennessey because as well as being a fine passer he could read the game like Bobby Moore. As good a judge of player as there has been in the game, Taylor said that Hennessey had “the ability to command space in a good defensive system. By that I mean a player who is on his own when the opposition has the ball, must be poised and capable of assessing whether he should commit himself or funnel back.”

That was good enough for Clough who described Hennessey as a “world-class defender” when he signed him from Nottingham Forest for £110,000 in February 1970. Clough saw the tall and prematurely balding Welshman as a replacement for Dave Mackay, whom he had played as a sweeper. However, the 35-year-old Mackay played on throughout the 1970-71 season, while Hennessey struggled with injuries.

In February 1971 Clough spent another large chunk of chairman Sam Longson’s money and bought Colin Todd from Sunderland for £175,000. After Mackay’s departure in 1971, Todd and Roy McFarland formed a formidable central defensive partnership, while Hennessey was deployed mainly in midfield when he was fit — he may only have played 18 games in Derby’s championship winning season in 1971-72 but his contribution was undoubted, an elegant figure in front of the back four who was good on the ball and would launch attacks after sweeping up play.

Hennessey was sold to Nottingham Forest for £50,000 POPPERFOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

“We played a passing game at Derby but the ground wasn’t suited to any kind of game,” Hennessey told The Times in 2011. “There was no drainage and the balls were heavy. If it was tough for myself and the lads at Derby, then obviously it was tough for the opposition. That played in our favour because we were used to it. We even trained on it.”

The following season Derby finished in seventh place, but reached the semi-finals of the European Cup. Hennessey helped them get there with arguably his finest ever performance in a 0-0 draw against Benfica at the Stadium of Light in Lisbon. Operating in front of McFarland and Todd in a hostile atmosphere, he nullified the threat of the great Eusébio with a number of timely interceptions.

By the 1973-74 season Clough’s relationship with Longson was breaking down over arguments about the manager’s regular TV appearances on shows such as Parkinson. In an act of brinkmanship designed to shut the chairman up, Clough and Taylor resigned in October 1973. Longson called their bluff. As the club’s union representative, Hennessey threatened that the players would strike in support of Clough, whom he greatly respected although they were not close. When it became clear that Longson would not be changing his mind, Hennessey persuaded his team-mates to play on. He would not be one of them after being forced to retire shortly afterwards with a chronic knee injury.

William Terrence Hennessey was born in Llay, near Wrexham, north Wales, in 1942. His father was a miner who had moved from Co Durham to find work. The eldest of seven children, Terry attended a local grammar school but was forced to leave after his father was injured in a mining accident.

Football saved him from going down the pit himself. Manchester United, Everton and Wolves made overtures; Hennessey opted to sign as an apprentice for Birmingham City on £3.50 a week because he thought he would have more chance of playing. He made his debut in 1961 and played in the 1963 League Cup final as Birmingham beat arch rivals Aston Villa 3-1 on aggregate.

Hennessey struggled with a gambling addiction after he won £1,000 in an afternoon in a case of beginner’s luck. “It became a disease,” he said. “Someone should have taken half my wages from me until I was 21.” He was set straight by his team-mate Trevor Smith, who won two caps for England as a centre half.

Birmingham were relegated in 1965 and Hennessey was sold to Nottingham Forest for £50,000. He would make 180 appearances in five years, was made captain and paid off his £7,500 mortgage. In 1967 his name rang out from the terraces at the City Ground as much as that of their star winger Ian Storey-Moore. That season Nottingham Forest finished runners-up to Manchester United in the League Championship and lost the FA Cup semi-final to Tottenham Hotspur.

Hennessey won 39 caps for Wales, 20 as captain, between 1962 and 1972, though he was frustrated not to win more because his club managers were often reluctant to release him.

He managed non-league Tamworth until 1978 when appointed to manage Tulsa Roughnecks in the North American Soccer League. His five-year tenure ended with Tulsa beating Toronto Blizzard 2-0 to win the Soccer Bowl. Yet the Oklahoma club was imploding financially. Hennessey emigrated to Australia, where he worked for a paper company in Melbourne. His wife Sandra predeceased him. He is survived by their son Dean and daughter Samantha.

Hennessey was never forgotten as one of Wales’s greatest players. His international team-mate John Toshack once said that at his peak, Hennessey was good enough to play for any team in the world.

Terry Hennessey, footballer, was born on September 1, 1942. He died of undisclosed causes on August 8, 2025, aged 82

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