Musings on Money

John Terry: Captain, Leader, illegal merchandise conspiracy fall guy stitch up?

Lot of people are saying that Big JT has got off lightly with a four game ban. Well I tell you what, those people don’t know jack about football. To normal people four games might not seem that much but believe me four games is like a lifetime in football.

When I was a Portsmouth I got a four-game ban for trying to sell what turned out to be pirated Premier League merchandise (shirts, DVDs, Gary Neville duvet covers) on eBay as a sideline. They done me for bringing the game into disrepute and I got a letter saying I was banned for four games. In those four games I lost my place (in the reserves; to be fair I was not really in serious first-team contention at the time), drifted out of favour and Harry Redknapp used it as an excuse to drum me out of the club in the transfer window.

It was only years later that I found out from a very good contact at the FA (my cousin was having it away a friend of Faria Alarms) that it was all total bull. The Premier League and FA don’t have the authority to ban someone for anything like that. Turned out that Portsmouth themselves had told me I was banned because Milan Mandaric was sick of the sight of me, done a letter on forged paper and basically used it as Trojan Horse to force me out of my Fratton Park dream. I’m not saying that Chelsea have set JT up because he’s got a load of moody training tops from a bloke in China, but on the other hand if I was John I’d be keeping a very close eye on things for them four games and definitely not buying anything without getting a receipt.

Transfer deadline day brought back a lot of memories

For a player who was never afraid to take on a new opportunity, like I was, transfer deadline day was always a massive day in the calendar. I moved a lot in my career: sometimes if I didn’t fit into the system, sometimes if I wanted to smash the system from within, sometimes if I had a personal situation with the manager and on one occasion, when I had a personal situation with the manager’s wife that led to a personal situation with the manager and the manager’s two brothers behind the changing rooms at the training ground. Be it seeking pastures new, realising it is time to move on, being told you are surplus to requirements, or being beaten up and told to leave town tonight, sometimes in your career you can find yourself checking Sky Sports News every five minutes and hoping that Jim White has GOT NEWS OF A MASSIVE DEAL INVOLVING RONNIE MATTHEWS.

For a while it seemed like hardly a transfer window went past without me being either bought or sold by Harry Redknapp and still to this day if I see Harry sticking that big old face through his car window to talk to a reporter I get an involuntary twitch in the wallet region. To anyone that never got their dream move this weekend I will just say: stay focused, chin up, keep doing the simple things well and start really making an effort come December time to hopefully put yourself in the shop window for January.

Footballers v Olympians

There’s a lot of rubbish talked about footballers and how like we are not as good a role model as athletes. No offence to like Rebecca Adlington or Sir Chris Hoy or whatever, but they just aren’t under the same pressures as a footballer is. If you think that getting up at dawn to go swimming is tough, you try training when you’re in a contract dispute with a club like I was during my ill-fated spell at Leeds United.

They wanted to rip my contract up because I was “surplus to basic requirements of human decency” as they put it. I said it’s not my fault you signed me on 37 a week plus incentives is it? Ridsdale said fine you can go and rot in the reserves. I said I’m already in the reserves thanks very much. They said well you can go train with the youth team then.

I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to pass on some of what I’d learned to the young boys but then there was an incident with an air-rifle and before I know it I’m being forced to train with the Ladies Team. Well I’ll tell you something, if you think that those women footballers take kindly to you trying to get in the shower with them after training you’ve got another thing coming. And anyone who thinks those goalies can’t kick properly should come round and have a look at some of my scars. Eventually I reached a settlement with Mr Risdale that I would agree to terminate my contract if they paid for my medical expenses for 18 months after the incident and I decided it was better to be the big man about it.

Frankly I’d like to see how Bradley Wiggins could of done anything different .