It would be so staggeringly obvious – were I to write at any length about racism in football – what I was going to say, that I don’t think it’s worth it. Suffice it to say that my interest in the sport is sustained despite severe provocation from a great many examples of witlessness, both on field and off by players and supporters alike. And John Terry and Luis Suarez may be the only the most recent poster children of football’s least appealing side, but it would be a struggle to say neither was fully deserving of their current ubiquity. It’s an exercise of restraint not to wish them each the worst.
That said, in the interests of balance, I do think that this post, about an unhitherto witnessed caring side of John Terry’s personality, is worth a read. It’s by Sam Tillen, a young man who once played football at Chelsea, and, although obviously biased, it suggests a rather more complex character than Terry’s repeated (and inexcusable) boorishness suggests.
Here’s the whole thing – extract below.
The year 2002 I was 17 and had been injured for eight monts. I usually had to train twice as much to be in form. I trained with several players during rehabilation and since John Terry was facing injury as well I trained a lot with him. We trained together for 3 or 4 weeks before he began to play again and prove himself as the number one center back in the first team. After this John always observed how I was doing with my injury and he wished me good luck for my first game after 11 months of rehabilation. Unfortunately in that first game I got heavily injured again and had to go to surgery 3 days later. When the physio came to visit me he said that "JT" had asked if I could get vacation and he even asked Graeme (Le Saux) if they could use the "discipline fund" (money if a player comes late to a training and such) from the first team to pay for my vacation. I couldn’t believe it.
After staying home for ten days I went to the training ground and John was there. He asked how I was doing and then said "Me and Graeme have arranged for you to go to a vacation, you can go wherever you want, with your friend or your brother, you deserve something good. Just think about where you want to go, this isn’t your money! Just let us know how much it costs and we will arrange it.
I didn’t know what to say other than thank you. I talked to the youth and reserve coaches and they told me it was probably best for me to take the vacation. One of the reserve coach said that I still had that "hospital color" because I was as white as a ghost. I lost a lot of blood in the surgery it showed in my face.
My mother had also just had surgery so she could use a a little break from work. That’s why I wanted to take her with me. It was october so I needed to find "some place hot" like John advised me to do. The one place close that was hot enough was south spain and because this wasn’t my money I didn’t want to take advantage of the generosity from John. So the next day during practice I said to John "Is it okay if me and my mother go to Sevilla over the weekend?" His answer was, "Come on Tills! You can go wherever you want for free, why do you want to go there? It won’t even be hot. Look at it again, go to the caribbeans or something, you can sit at the beach without having to worry how much it is going to cost, we will make sure of it."
So I went and checked again and found a good offer for a trip to Tobago. I talked to my physio for a few days and he said "It’s fine, just talk to JT." I still felt bad spending other people’s money, I had never done that before. So naturally I was a little nervous when I was talking to John, telling him about the trip I had in mind. And what did John say?
"No problem, good choice! Just give me the info and we’ll pay it."
Interesting stuff. Drawing no conclusions from it, but if it’s true, I’m pleased to hear he’s not quite as relentlessly unpleasant as he seems.
