Sat 11th September 2010; 15:00, Emirates Stadium
Sex, Lies And The England Captain
ByI thought I’d take a detour today and muse about the scandal of the day. There’s no video tape (well, not that I’ve seen), so I went with ’the England Captain’ in the title.
Let’s face it – infidelity is as old as the universe itself. It’s disingenuous to blame John Terry for acting on his animal instincts.
Part of the problem here is this; From time immemorial, men have under-estimated the mystical powers of the business end of a woman’s femininity. The world is littered by the great and good and by ordinary man folk who’ve fallen foul and succumbed to this mystical power.
The England captain is but a mere mortal and only stood as little chance as the next guy with a hard on. Perhaps what is more tragic, is that John Terry broke the cardinal rule of not banging the missus of a friend and colleague.
For that show of breath-taking stupidity, the poor chap has to face the music and deal with it (how do they say it) – like a man.
The hyperbole and hysteria machine that is the media is working overtime to ensure that they milk this for what it’s worth. Good juicy copy to fill the columns and air waves comes at a premium in this 24 hour ’give me the frigging news now’ culture that we have.
The question then becomes whether morality has a place on the football pitch.
If you want to know how big a deal this is, you only have to listen to the excuses already being made for England’s failures at the 2010 World cup.
If I were John Terry, I’d be pissed off that I’m already being set up as a fall guy – but frankly speaking, he should be more worried that his wife has a problem with his away game record.
Incidentally, there’s form on this very issue that Capello and the England team can draw on. It wasn’t very long ago, 3 World cups ago to be precise – that the USA national team totally lost the plot.
The USA captain at the time was banging the wife of a team-mate and once that came to light, it was all downhill from there and the team never recovered.
My sense is that a captain has several jobs and it’s easy to debate whether on-field matters can be separated from or affected by off-field matters. Everyone will have an opinion about this and you can argue until the cows come home.
The thing is though, the glue that holds together all the attributes that makes a captain successful is trust. Once that’s broken – it really is a project to keep the team together.
Certainly, if I was a Chelsea or England player, I wouldn’t want to leave my wife or girlfriend alone in the same room with Terry. I would suspect that Terry would find it hard to command the respect of those that matter in the England setup.
The other bigger headache for Capello is that if he fires John Terry as England captain, he doesn’t exactly have the entire Vienna Boys Choir to choose from to get a new captain.
Steven Gerrard might seem to some as a natural replacement. But what does it say about a thug who bullies a DJ in a bar because the DJ refuses to play him a Phil Collins song and goes ahead and knocks a few teeth off the unsuspecting chap. I’m still amazed that even with the CCTV footage, the good folks of the jury saw it as self defence….but clearly, I digress.
Banging other people’s missus’s has consequences and I guess we’re already seeing the media blaming John Terry for another ”…but we won it in 1966” refrain.
Hmmmm this one is totally down to everyones own perspective, but personally I think that it shows a total lack of respect for his team mates. A captain should do nothing other than raise morale. Look at the outrage Gallas caused and it was not a fraction of the detriment caused by Terry’s wayward stiffy.
I think he should be stripped of the England captaincy I couldn’t give two shiny sh**s how Chelsea conduct themselves, but it’s an insult to previous England captains if he was to retain the armband.
Give Rooney it I say.
Great Post Darius, perfect time for a change of subject. A weeks wait after a defeat is toooo long.
ELS…I didn’t even realise how tired I got just thinking of the drama in the Arsenal blogosphere until you mentioned it.
They really came out of the woodwork this week…LOL!
Maybe Capello should just call back Sol Campbell and give him the arm band.
What an idea Darius! I have a £5 bet on with a colleague that Sol will go to the world cup, it was made before the Man U game. I had visions of Sol owning Rooney, and it would be plain sailing. There is still time.
John Terry had proved to all of us to be a true cunt, something we already know.
I said once before that to me chelski represent everything that is wrong with the world today. I guess I was right.
The craziest thing our captain was accused of was wearing a hoodie on his own pitch.
..And to think of the drama they made of that.
Oh yeah – and for spitting…allegedly I might add. I would have sued Brian Houghton and Phil Brown if I was Cesc.
I think the funniest two pictures I’ve come across of Arsenal players
Sweet child of mine, that’s rather striking. Love the new look Darius.
Daruis, the new look is awesome! Haha
Keep up the good work mate.
PS: whatever we do as a club will always be scrutinized to the core.
Tomas Rosicky
“I always knew that if I hadn’t signed by 1st January I would be a free agent and could basically talk to any club,” he added.
“That is why I wanted the deal done by the New Year.
“Arsenal have always been my priority and that is why I did not want to start any speculation.”
What a guy, he is awesome, loving the fact that he seems to be having a nice stretch in the team.
He’s a star cursed by injuries. To me he could be as big an impact as Pires was, just imagine if Pires has the same injuries, it’s a blow.
I also love Nasri. It’s so stupid how d&gs slack him off. He’s still very young and he’s awesome.
diceman, the D&G will slag anyone off, even God if they had the chance.
Darius! A new look ehnn… Very nice.
John Terry is just showing the extentent of his cunt-’titude’. He is not only corrupt, he is morally bankrupt. How long ago was it when he conducted an illegal tour of CFC? I often talked about comeuppance, don’t I? What goes around comes around.