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Yesterday saw the end of the career of one of the Premier League’s all-time greats, as former Chelsea and England captain John Terry decided to hang up his boots after the best part of two decades playing at the top of the game.
Terry will go down as a legend in Chelsea folklore and it’s hard to deny both his accomplishments – he won multiple trophies in his career including the Premier League on 5 occasions and the Champions League once – but despite this, ‘JT’ was involved in heavily controversial moments on numerous occasions in his storied career.
#1 The 9/11 incident
The 2000/01 season saw Terry break into Chelsea’s first team as a regular choice as a central defender, but it didn’t take long afterward for him to court some serious controversy. In September 2001, he was one of four Chelsea players fined by the club following a nasty incident surrounding the cancellation of a UEFA Cup tie with Levski Sofia following the terrorist attacks in New York on September 11th.
Terry, along with his teammates Frank Lampard, Jody Morris and Eidur Gudjohnsen went on a drinking binge at a hotel near Heathrow Airport just 24 hours after the attacks, and according to reports the session went on for five hours and saw the players behave terribly – stripping, swearing and vomiting.
It was also reported that the four players abused American citizens who were stranded in the area following the attacks, although Chelsea’s managing director at the time, Colin Hutchinson, denied that the four intended to insult any member of the public.
He did, however, state that their behaviour was “totally out of order” – and fined each player two weeks’ wages before donating the money – reported to be well over £100k – to a fund helping the families of Americans affected by the terror attacks.
While Terry was relatively young at the time of the incident – just 20 years old – the incident was an early sign of his mistakes in judgment.
#2 The Wayne Bridge affair
One of the most controversial incidents involving Terry was revealed in January 2010, when a so-called High Court super-injunction was lifted, allowing the media to report a truly shocking story – the Chelsea and England captain had apparently had a four-month affair in late 2009 with French model Vanessa Perroncel – better known as the ex-girlfriend of Terry’s former Chelsea – and current England – teammate Wayne Bridge.
Despite both Perroncel and Terry denying the allegations – both The News of the World and The Mail on Sunday printed apologies to Perroncel for breaching her privacy – where there was smoke, there was clearly some fire.
Just weeks after the allegations hit the press, Chelsea faced off with Bridge’s new team Manchester City – and cameras clearly picked up Bridge refusing to shake the hand of his former teammate.
City went on to win the game 4-2 and Bridge has stated years later that his teammates were “amazing” that day and “it felt like they wanted to win for me”.
The allegations ended up having further consequences for Terry, too. Bridge chose to retire from international football following the revelations as he claimed his position with England had become “untenable and potentially divisive”, and in the wake of the reports, Terry was then stripped of his England captaincy – although he was reinstated to the position around a year later.
#3 The accusation of racism
Terry once again found himself in seriously hot water in late 2011, as during a Premier League game against QPR, he was alleged to have called QPR defender Anton Ferdinand a “f*cking black c*nt”.
Even worse for Terry, he couldn’t even outright deny the allegation - video footage of the incident quickly emerged, with expert lip readers confirming that the Chelsea defender had used the slur.
For his part, Terry claimed that he hadn’t aimed the slur at Ferdinand and had actually been asking the player if he mistakenly thought he’d used it. As the case was going all the way to the courts, the FA had no choice but to once again strip Terry of the England captaincy in February 2012.
This led directly to the resignation of England boss Fabio Capello, who felt that the FA should have no right over him to decide who could play as captain.
Eventually, the court cleared Terry, feeling that there was no way of proving the context of the slur although Terry did admit to uttering it.
But the FA weren’t happy with the decision and launched their own investigation, which ended in Terry being slapped with a four-match ban and a £220k fine, as they felt that the player was guilty of using abusive and insulting words which included a reference to Ferdinand’s race.
Terry chose not to contest the FA’s decision but did choose to retire from his duties with England, feeling his position had become untenable due to the charges.
#4 The Champions League celebration
In the 2007/08 season, Terry led Chelsea all the way to the Champions League final – a showdown against fellow Premier League side Manchester United in a rain-soaked Moscow. And he had the chance to win the game for the Blues too, as he took what seemed to be the decisive penalty in the eventual shoot-out between the two sides.
Unfortunately, Terry missed – slipping and hitting the post – and Chelsea went on to lose. Four seasons later, the Blues once again made the final of the Champions League, but this time Terry wasn’t available for the match due to his red card in the semi-final victory over Barcelona.
Chelsea managed to win the famous trophy on this occasion, defeating Bayern Munich after a penalty shoot-out following a 1-1 draw. And controversially, when it was time to present the trophy, who turned up – in full kit for good measure – to lift the cup? Captain, leader and legend John Terry, of course!
The move was instantly lampooned on social media as a shameless display of ego, as anyone who hadn’t caught the match but saw the post-match celebrations would probably have thought that Terry had played a starring role.
Despite taking so much abuse online – and seeing the phrase “doing a John Terry” become a meme of its own – a year later he was at it again, celebrating in full kit with the Europa League trophy following Chelsea’s win over Benfica, despite missing the game with an ankle injury.
#5 The guard of honour
Perhaps the most downright bizarre controversial incident involving Terry occurred in May 2017 – as his storied career at Chelsea was coming to an end. Although Chelsea won the Premier League that season, due to his age and waning pace, the ‘captain, leader and legend’ made just 9 league appearances.
With the news that Terry was departing the club in the summer announced prior to Chelsea’s final league game against relegated Sunderland, the captain was chosen to start the game, but few could’ve predicted the scene that would occur next.
On the 26th minute of the game – as the number 26 had become synonymous with Terry due to him wearing it throughout his career – the captain was substituted for Gary Cahill, but this was no ordinary substitution.
Rather than just walk off the pitch, the game actually stopped outright – and both Chelsea and Sunderland’s players formed a guard of honour, allowing Terry to leave the pitch – and end his Chelsea career – in style.
Terry later revealed that the guard of honour was his own idea – explaining that he “kind of negotiated with the manager to play 26 minutes and then come off” – and that Sunderland boss David Moyes had agreed to it too.
Unfortunately, the idea didn’t go down well with pundits and observers alike. Both Alan Shearer and Garth Crooks criticized the incident on Match of the Day, with Crooks claiming it made him feel “uncomfortable” and Shearer stating that it may have undermined the integrity of the game.
And writing for the Guardian, Jamie Jackson called the “unedifying episode” “a farce that should never be repeated”.
For some Chelsea fans it was a moment of respect for their captain – but to most people it was yet another sign of Terry’s ego becoming out of control, and a sign of an already controversial figure once again causing needless debates.
