PATRICK COLLINS: Terry's cosy relationship with Chelsea comes at a price ... a very big price indeed

01 August 2009 20:55
MICHAEL SCHUMACHER emerged from the twilight home and found himself at the wheel of a Formula One Ferrari. Roy Keane prepared his Ipswich footballers for the rigours of the Championship by training with the7th Parachute Regiment Royal HorseArtillery. And the owner of Tranmere Rovers was 'shocked and appalled' to discover that his club was up for sale on eBay. It was, as they say, a funny old week. Yet nothing came close to the saga of Loyal John Terry's BattleAgainst Temptation or How I Must Learn To Rub Along On £150,000 A Week. The details have become familiar. We shall always remember what we were doing when beacons were lit and church bells were rung and we heard that Terry had decided to stay with Chelsea for the three years which remain on his contract. And yet those details seem almost irrelevant when set against the brazen insouciance with which Terry announced his decision to the masses. 'Leaving Chelsea was never a possibility,' he declared. On the other hand, 'there were a few sleepless nights' after he was told about Manchester City's attempt to double his salary. If there was 'no possibility' then why the 'sleepless nights'? We are not told. In fact, we are made to feel distinctly impertinent for daring to inquire. And again, referring to the perfectly reasonable speculation that he had been spinning out negotiations in order to secure a new contract:'It's never been about a new deal for me. But if the club come to me in the next few months I'll sit down and talk to them.' After which, one assumes, he will decline to accept any increase in wages, since: 'It's never been about a new deal.' It is all the most extraordinary gibberish made worse by the fact that the author of this public relations garbage was too idle to confront even the most glaring contradictions. The fact is that Terry was given an invincible hand and he played it impeccably. He allowed rumours to build, speculation to soar and pressure to mount. And he did nothing. In the meantime, the ego of an oligarch was pitted against the purse of a sheik. Sure, the non-combatants found it bewildering. City were apparently prepared to pay in the region of £40million, plus £250,000 per week fora 28-year-old central defender with a dodgy back. You're our hero: Chelsea fans have stayed loyal to 'Jay-Tee' The fee was obscene, the wages absurd and the values stank to high heaven. Yet nobody blamed Terry. Well, not especially. The City fans have been behaving with all the gravitas of Lottery winners these past few months, buying just about everybody who wanders past the front door. For them, Terry would have been just another scalp, another assertion of immoderate new money. As for the unreconstructed element among Chelsea's support, they have yelped knee-jerk allegiance to 'Jay-Tee', or Mr Chelsea, or the heartbeat and spiritual leader of the Stamford Bridge pack. Some of them justified Terry's tactics on the vaguely Thatcherite grounds that everybody has a sacred duty to do that which is best for himself. The others refused to believe that a man who has spent the past decade kissing the badge, shaking a staunch fist and bellowing loyal cliches could possibly be contemplating desertion. So 'Jay-Tee' was home and dry. Trebles all round! 'Never any question I'd stay': But John Terry still took his time to make his mind up And yet, there were small side benefits, small lights shone into the way things are run at Stamford Bridge. In the course of that deeply unconvincing statement Terry revealed an extraordinary degree of player power. It seems that Terry as well as Frank Lampard a similarly skilled negotiator and Didier Drogba have the owner's ear. 'Listen,' said Terry, 'he [Roman Abramovich] is a very successful businessman and makes all the final decisions. But he likes to have the opinion of the players.' How very cosy. Yet could you imagine Sir Alex tolerating that at Old Trafford? Or Wenger in north London? Of course not. But this is apparently par for the course at a club which has had five managers in the past five years. It may be a nod to democracy; it is scarcely a recipe for stability. Still, Terry finds the situation much to his taste. As beacons blazed and bells pealed, the skipper grew positively effusive. 'We love what he's done at the club,' he gasped. 'As a player, when you get a phone call from your own club saying that, no matter what money, they won't sell you . . . it's unbelievable to just sit down there and listen to it from the owner. That's the kind of relationship you can't buy.' And that is the kind of line he really can't sell. True, he won't been joying the City windfall. But if and when they 'sit down and talk', then he is likely to settle on a rise of around £25,000 a week. You see, that cosy relationship has its price, just like everything in football. And Roman Abramovich has just paid it. Give Ponting the respect he has earned The best Australian ever? Ricky Ponting deserves more than jeers THE most disconcerting sound of this compelling Test series has been the witless derision directed at Ricky Ponting. It appears that the primitive element in England's following has decided that the Australian captain is vulnerable to crude abuse. He must therefore be hounded crudely and abusively at every turn. Now, here we should stress that Ponting is a 34-year-old Australian male. As such, he is unlikely to be of a sensitive disposition nor a stranger to raucous insult. Moreover, he has frequently shown himself capable of giving as good as he gets. And yet the barracking has moved from simple mockery to something far less acceptable. The booing which greeted his walk to the wicket in the first innings was not only discourteous but deplorable. Chants which would seem only mildly malicious in a football ground acquire a more sinister resonance in a Test arena. Clearly, he is seen as by far the most dangerously accomplished performer in the Australian side. Indeed, the statistics merely underline his status. On Friday he became the highest-scoring Australian in Test history. His total of 11,188 runs hasbeen exceeded only by Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar. His average of 56.22 places him among the top 15 batsmen who have ever played theinternational game. Most of us would be happy if he failed to improve his average or even his aggregate for the rest of this Test summer. But we do not doubt that Ricky Ponting is a cricketer of stunning pedigree and immense distinction. He does not seek our sympathy, but he has long since earned our respect. Tour de France legend may yet turn into Brent...LANCE ARMSTRONG may well be the finest cyclist who ever pushed a pedalbut self-awareness was never his strongest point. Following a protracted spat with his team-mate Alberto Contador, Armstrong fired off an indignant 'Twitter' to the Tour de France winner. 'Hey, pistolero,' he wrote. 'A champion is also measured on how much he respects his team-mates and opponents. There is no 'I' in team.' There has been much speculation over what Armstrong will do when he retires. Well, now it can be told. He will retire to Slough, take a middle management post in apaper company, and concentrate on turning into David Brent. PS...THE signs suggest that Newcastle are in for all kinds of humiliation in their forthcoming Championship season. Yet nothing is likely to match the indignity of last weekend at Brisbane Road. A 6-1 defeat by Leyton Orient was bad enough but the reaction of Orient's manager, Geraint Williams, was devastating. Without a trace of arrogance, Williams drily observed: 'A clean sheet would have been nice.'

Source: Daily_Mail