A Message from the Anti-John Terry Faction

Allright, allright.  My last post (on politics, naturally) got a pretty paltry response.

I get it.  Y'all tired of politics.  If anything, many of you probably come here to ESCAPE today's obsession with politics, politics, politics.

So let's talk about something else....how about Football, with a capital F standing for "foot", indicating that we are talking football football, played with the feet and not with the hands, played with beauty and eloquence (and sometimes a bit of acting) rather than with violence and outmoded Jominian tactics; a game wholly European and yet, oddly enough, wholly capitalistic in its managerial style, rather than a game wholly American and yet run like some kind of benevolent USSR with planned economics designed to evenly distribute the talent around and a mustachioed strongman sitting at the top.

Okay, maybe Goddell isn't sporting a Stalinesque cookie duster, though I'll bet he is thought of it. Baduska Paduska, Comrade Goodell!  Baduska Paduska!

No.  We talking soccer.  And specifically, we talking Chelsea FC.

Now, one of the joys of being separated from your favorite sports team by the ocean is that you are not subjected to the barrage of gossip that surrounds any sports franchise.  And even if you do catch wind of some of it it doesn't figure highly into how you follow your sport, becuase no one here in America is talking about it.  They are more worried about sports talk issues more closer to home, things like:

-Can Frank Beamer's Hokies keep the momentum up after beating the mighty Blue Devils?

-Where did Frank Beamer get his sunglasses?  Are they special made?  Can I get a pair just like his?

-Is it true that Frank Beamer has a tattoo of Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland, mistress of King Charles II and a very young John Churchill, certified hottie from history, the Farrach Fawcett of her age (Samuel Peyps had a portrait of her installed in his private study), etched with great care upon his hind-quarters?

Her Hotness, the Duchess of Cleveland

Still, there are those times where even the distance between myself and London cannot keep me safe from the tumultuous life and misadventures of one Chelsea player in particular, and that would be Mr. Chelsea himself, John Terry.

For those of you who don't know, John Terry is the Chelsea captain and the cornerstone upon which the mighty Blues build their defense.  But last year he also made an incredibly foul and racist remark (I know what he said, but it's so offensive that even I, who am known for tossing around a few choice words on this blog, will not dare repeat them) to Anton Ferdinand, a defender at QPR, and the repercussions have played out very, very slowly.

In Britain, making a racist remark is actually a prosecutable crime, and while Terry has been cleared by the English courts thanks to a host of barristers wearing what I presume are funny little powdered wigs, he has been found guilty by the English Football Association (FA) and has had a four game ban imposed upon him.

He is appealing the ban, and so in the meantime he continues to play for the club.  How has the off field ruckus affecting his on field performance?  Well, as everyone in the football world knows, John Terry plays at his best with his back to the wall and his good name dragged through mud, because putting in a good performance on the pitch will obviously silence all his detractors and restore his good name.

It wouldn't be so bad, perhaps, if Terry would offer at least an apology.  His argument has always been that he said whatever he said in the heat of the moment and it wasn't intended to be overtly rascist.  Maybe so, but an admission and apology is probably still in order.

It also wouldn't be so bad if this was just your normal football star having a bad day and making a horrible lapse in judgement.  If it happened to Manchester United's Ryan Gibbs -  who has a reputation of being a hard working, professional footballer and a decent human being - we would all be shocked and saddened but we'd give him the benefit of the doubt, and Gibbs would undoubtedly do what was necessary to put it all behind him.

Unfortunately, John Terry is a repeat offender, as you can see by the rap sheet below:

• September 2001:  Terry is fined two weeks wages by Chelsea for an incident involving three Chelsea players and American tourists at a bar in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.  I am not sure what he said, but I believe he decided it would be wise to make a bit of a joke out of the whole planes flying into building thing.  Not good.  I didn't know about that until after I started supported Chelsea, and if I had known about it I may not have thrown my hat in the ring.
• January 2002:  Terry and team mate Jody Morris are charged with assault and affray after a confrontation with a nightclub bouncer.  I think the charges were dropped.
• 2009:  Allegedly takes money from an undercover reporter for a private tour of Chelsea's training ground.
• January 2010:  Rumors circulate that Terry, recent winner of Father of the Year, had a four month affair with Vanessa Perroncel, the former girlfriend of team mate Wayne Bridge.  Oddly, the press was more concerned about the fact that Terry was sleeping with the ex girlfriend of a former team mate, instead of, you know, cheating on his wife.  The allegations cost Terry his England Captaincy, though it turns out that the press reported the story was made up and Perroncel herself would never admit to an affair.  John Terry and his wife remain married, so....let's give the old man the benefit of the doubt here. 

And there is the whole kerfuffle with Anton Ferdinand.  

Additionally, while Terry is a good defender, he is just kind of a dick about it.  I mean, any good defender is always kind of picking at the divas and pretty boys making up the opposition's attacking steel, looking to frustrate them, get inside their heads, and make them ultimately screw up or better yet lose their cool and get carded.  Terry is also constantly arguing with the refs, and while it is true that as captain he does have a right to do so, he does it so much and so persistantly that it comes of as a negative.  

In short, Terry is doing everything he is supposed to be doing on the pitch, but since off the pitch he seems like such a distasteful person it makes it tints his match performance in a negative light.  

I, for one, will be happy to see him off.  Yes, he's a good defender, but I think Chelsea can find other excellent defenders to take his place.  But the fans love him, for some reason, and so his departure from the club doesn't seem likely in the near future.  Though he is 32, and as a defender he can only have three more good years left in those legs of his.

I guess in closing only one thing can be said after weighing all the evidence that this blog post has provided.  The Duchess of Cleveland was hot, and John Terry is not.  How is that for an ending for ya?  I've been taking quip lessons from Joe Biden.

Image credit:  Barbara Palmer (née Villiers), Duchess of Cleveland published by Richard Tompson, after Sir Peter Lely, mezzotint, 1678-1679 NPG D20377 © National Portrait Gallery, London, used by creative commons permission