Why I won't be shedding any tears for John Terry - unlike most he'll still get his fairytale

When did we decide it was a club’s duty to give a long-serving player everything he asked for at the end of his career, asks Brian Reade

 

Captain, leader, leaving: Terry is off - but I won't be shedding a tear

Excuse me for not reaching for a hanky over the treatment of John Terry and Manuel Pellegrini.

The tears just won’t come. It may have something to do with spending time with sacked steel-workers recently, who after a lifetime’s service were brutally discarded, along with their communities, due to a fall in world prices and a government that doesn’t care.

Or maybe it’s hearing from someone I know, virtually every other week, that they’ve been made redundant with the minimum of notice and compensation, due to “market forces.”

Forces which smile more kindly on today’s footballers and managers than any other profession I can think of.

Mike Hewitt/Getty

Captain, leader, legend: Terry will get his fairytale - whether at Chelsea or not

If you buy into sucking cash out of fans’ pockets on such a scale that you and your immediate family never have to work again, then you surely have to accept when your moment passes.

To be fair to Pellegrini he has. His was a magnificently dignified announcement, letting everyone know what they’d known for a month. That Pep Guardiola was coming in and his contract would not be renewed. There was no agenda with Pellegrini. No attempt to emotionally blackmail fans or the media into backing him in a perceived injustice.

John Terry on the other hand, was, as always, a different kettle of piranha. His public announcement that Chelsea were discarding him and denying him a “fairytale ending” to his 17-year career, was a public call to arms. It worked.

 

Many of his fans, at Stamford Bridge and in the media, were enraged on his behalf. Paul Merson and Tony Cascarino read off an identical script, calling the decision “madness” and questioning why Branislav Ivanovic was given a new contract when Terry wasn’t.

Even though Ivanovic is four years younger than 35-year-old Terry and Chelsea haven’t ruled out another contract for their captain, but believe it’s down to the next manager. Understandably, when you consider how many previous managers were said to have lost the dressing room, when the undisputed captain, leader and legend of that dressing room was Terry.

 John Terry's Chelsea career: Best pictures 

There’s a bigger question here, which I raised when Steven Gerrard announced he was leaving Liverpool: When did it become a club’s duty to give a long-serving player everything he asked for at the end of his career?

World Cup winning, one-club, captain Bobby Moore was 32 when West Ham moved him on to Fulham.

Triple European Cup winning, one-club, captain Phil Thompson was 30 when Liverpool sold him to Sheffield United. I’m sure Chelsea’s all-time record League goalscorer Bobby Tambling wasn’t happy a year short of his 30th birthday to be flogged to Crystal Palace.

Look at the shabby way they were treated financially back then. Liverpool’s first modern superstar, Ian St John, received a curt two-line letter after a decade’s service informing him his contract would not be renewed.

Icon: Despite his success Moore didn't get a fairytale ending at West Ham

When he asked if he could buy the house his family had been renting off the club at the price they paid for it (£2,500) he was turned down as they had it lined up for another player. Like so many others back then the legend was thrown out of work and out of house with no savings and no pity.

Think of the fortune Chelsea paid John Terry and how many times they stood behind him when he was public enemy number one. Think of the millions awaiting him in semi-retirement in America or China and it’s clear that unlike the vast majority of workers, he is guaranteed a fairytale ending.

If we’re getting violins out let’s play them for those life-long fans who, through losing their job have been priced out of watching the club they love. Or for the steel-workers.
Or, if we’re keeping it Chelsea, maybe Eva Carneiro.

BY BRIANREADE