seboyle

4 hours ago, NurembergVillan said:

He's still good enough to play for England.  Not that that is much of a compliment these days!

Ain't that the truth!

I also maybe want to try and redress the balance a bit on his reputation since he got slated by a few earlier in the thread and sometimes for things he didn't really do or at least not quite as badly as they were portrayed.

The Heathrow incident on Sept 12th 2001 (not 11th) was not quite as it has been commonly reported, it wasn't the case that the players directly insulted or mocked any Americans. Make no mistake the behaviour was bad enough but a more accurate headline would be something like, "Chelsea players behave insensitively during drunken binge" and that to me is quite different because most of the outrage about this is over the 'fact' that they 'mocked' Americans verbally while they were watching footage of 9/11. This article is pretty good on it with direct quotes from people who were there.

https://deadspin.com/remember-when-a-chelsea-player-waggled-his-dick-at-grie-1730110370

Another one which is perhaps a little exaggerated is the Wayne Bridge incident. Vanessa Perroncel was Bridge's ex-girlfriend (they'd split up months previously) not his wife or girlfriend, and Bridge was JT's ex-teammate, not his teammate. Again, he obviously doesn't come out well since he was still cheating on his wife but there is a degree of difference between those two situations (if it did actually happen of course, Perroncel denies it to this day, though I suspect it probably did). Maybe it doesn't matter since the behaviour obviously isn't great but at least be accurate and say he was sleeping with his ex-teammates ex-girlfriend not his teammate's wife or fiance or other things I've read.

Lastly this whole business about the Champions' League Final and wearing the kit. This one is just silly. It was a UEFA directive that year (and since I believe) that suspended players should be in kit and not in suits. I think it was so the celebration photos would look better or something. Check out this photo and you'll see Raul Meireles on his right in full kit when he too was suspended. Look two to the left and you'll see Branislav Ivanovic with a flag around his neck also in full kit and also suspended. But, you know, John Terry...

http://images.performgroup.com/di/library/GOAL/fc/b0/john-terry-chelsea-champions-league-final-2012_p4dcx50572dtzjog83zo8e2q.jpg?t=-1159289051

Anyway, sorry for clogging up your thread. I suppose I am hoping that at the end of his career there'll at least be supporters of one other club that won't hate him with a passion. Best way for that to happen would be for you lot to win promotion so best of luck with that. How do you rate your chances right now?

Chelsea fan here in peace.

It's been interesting reading this thread over the past few months. Fair to say I think that there was a mixed reaction to start with, some outright hostility, some scepticism and some cautious optimism. I must say I've enjoyed watching that change in recent weeks as it looks like he's started to show his quality.