John Terry's exit will be the end of an era for Chelsea — and perhaps English football too

By DaveKidd

With Carragher, Scholes, Giggs and Gerrard now gone, the Blues' skipper is the last great 'one-club' player — a man who simply embodies the spirit of that team 

Captain, LEAVER, legend: Terry's 21-year Chelsea career will end this summer

It was a strange old setting in which to announce the end of an era.
In the bowels of Stadium:MK, in a city with so many roundabouts that your satnav is in danger of contracting laryngitis, here was John Terry revealing that his Chelsea career had reached its destination.

Terry’s 18-year career as a Chelsea first-teamer – and his 21-year association with the club – will end in May.
Captain, leaver, legend.
It is the end of an era for Chelsea, and perhaps the end of an era for English football.

Following the Liverpool departures of Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, as well as the retirements of Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs at Manchester United, Terry is the last remaining great ‘one-club’ man. A player who simply embodies the spirit of his only club.

Whatever opposition fans think of him, Chelsea fans adore him and have defended his honour defiantly through each of his many scrapes and disgraces.
Terry is one of them, wed to them, for better or worse.

People's champ: Terry has remained beloved by Chelsea fans if not by many others 

He has been the most controversial English football of his generation but also one of his nation’s greatest central defenders and club captains.
Of course, there was bad and there was ugly, along with the years of very, very good defending.

He was twice stripped of the England captaincy – first over allegations about his private life which he always denied, then for his racist abuse of QPR’s Anton Ferdinand, of which he was cleared in a court of law.

And Terry twice missed out on winning the greatest club prize, the European Cup.

First, when he slipped and missed a shoot-out spot-kick which would have beaten Manchester United in
Moscow in 2008, and then when he was suspended for Chelsea’s eventual glory night against Bayern Munich four years later, for a crazy kick at Alexis Sanchez in the semi-final in Barcelona.

    Fall guy: Terry could have won the 2008 European Cup final but then this happened 

   Red missed: This sending-off meant Terry was banned for the 2012 European Cup final... 

  ...but he joined in the celebrations — infamously after putting on full Chelsea kit 

Terry donned full kit – shin pads and all - to lift the trophy alongside Frank Lampard at the Allianz Arena but it wasn’t the same and he knew it.

Yet Terry was the cussed, none-shall-pass on-field incarnation of Jose Mourinho when Chelsea won their first two Premier League crowns – and currently has four titles, five FA Cups, four League Cups, one Europa League and a PFA Player of the Year award.

So Chelsea’s decision to allow Terry to leave when, at the age of 35, he is still capable of outstanding performances and clearly still believes he has plenty of gas left in his tank, is a curious one.

The 35-year-old was told of Chelsea’s decision not to renew his contract before last Sunday’s visit to Arsenal.
Yet typically, he went out and produced a defiant display in a 1-0 victory over Arsene Wenger’s title-challengers.

That Chelsea could not readily halt this season’s early slide had much to do with the fact that the rest of Terry’s fellow dressing-room stalwarts – Petr Cech, Didier Drogba and Lampard – had vacated the dressing-room.

        Blues brothers: Terry and manager Mourinho were vital to Chelsea's emergence as the team to beat 

Chelsea had been left with a squad dripping with talent, yet lacking in character.
Now they must rebuild without their strongest character of all.
Interim boss Guus Hiddink said recently that he would recommend that Terry should be retained.

And even as Terry announced his bombshell news, there was still the caveat that an incoming permanent boss might insist on offering him another deal.
Yet despite having stood by him steadfastly during his darkest hours, owner Roman Abramovich and his board now seem determined to ditch him.

It will be a deeply unpopular decision with Chelsea’s supporters. Perhaps even less popular than Mourinho’s pre-Christmas sacking – which saw the Stamford Bridge faithful turn on several of their own players.
Yet such rebellion was short-lived once Chelsea went on their current nine-match unbeaten run.

Memories are short, no man is bigger than the club – as even Terry admits – and the cemeteries are full of indispensable men.

Terry claims he will never – as Lampard did when he had that pre-MLS spell at Manchester City - play for another Premier League club, and that he wants to end his Chelsea career as an FA Cup winning-captain before heading abroad.

  True Blue: Terry had a 2000 loan to Forest but will not play for another English club 

But as he left Milton Keynes on Sunday night, after a 5-1 hiding of the hapless Dons, blue was the colour of his mood.

Few players have ever belonged to a football club as Terry did to Chelsea.
And it’s doubtful that any will do so again.