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| John Terry: Captain Fantastic |
As a law student (albeit a Scots law student) and an ardent Chelsea fan, you might have thought that I would have had a conflict of interests as John Terry's trial at Westminster Mags unfolded last week. I saw the Youtube video (as apparently did everyone in the world) and saw the same words being uttered as everyone else. As it happens, my situation (the potential conflict of interests) meant that I've spent the last few months defending John Terry from both points of view. Firstly my law student mind saw me defend him from the point of view of the 'innocent until proven guilty' stance. People don't like to hear that argument but it's one that I will stick to because it's the right argument in a society such as ours. My Chelsea supporter's mind was telling me that I had to defend him because I like him as a player and as a captain of the team that I'm a fan of. The latter, as you can well imagine, was not as strong a standpoint.
At least 1 in 3 people that I talked to about John Terry's trial said that he was guilty before he even stepped into the court room last Monday. Terry is one of those people in the public eye that the public generally don't like. The only people that seem to like him, in fact, are Chelsea fans and Chelsea players. He doesn't seem to have that many supporters outside of those two groups of people which I suppose is why he is called 'Mr Chelsea'. I can possibly see why people don't like him but at the same time he seems to get a lot of stick for someone who has been at the top of the game for so long and who has won so much. Dare I even drop in the fact that he has been a consistently good performer for an otherwise below-par England team? We all have opinions but possibly yours are more important than mine on that point (thanks to Twin Atlantic for the words!).
I could see where the case was going to go and so could many people that were commentating on it. His case was argued well (one of the pleasures of having deep pockets) and the evidence against him was inconclusive despite that apparently damning video and it all resulted in John Terry not being a racist - like we didn't know that already. He plays in a team that has one of the highest numbers of black players in the Premier League. Two of his best friends, if stories are to be believed, are Didier Drogba and Ashley Cole. On Tuesday (day two of the trial) some teammates (both past and present) and Jose Mourinho stated that John Terry is not a racist. What more evidence in his favour did anyone actually need?
I could see where the case was going to go and so could many people that were commentating on it. His case was argued well (one of the pleasures of having deep pockets) and the evidence against him was inconclusive despite that apparently damning video and it all resulted in John Terry not being a racist - like we didn't know that already. He plays in a team that has one of the highest numbers of black players in the Premier League. Two of his best friends, if stories are to be believed, are Didier Drogba and Ashley Cole. On Tuesday (day two of the trial) some teammates (both past and present) and Jose Mourinho stated that John Terry is not a racist. What more evidence in his favour did anyone actually need?
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| John Terry with Ashley Cole and Didier Drogba |
I'm not for one moment saying that John Terry is an angel because he's not. He comes from a family that has had problems with crime and he has been lambasted with the Wayne Bridge thing non-stop since the news broke. I think it is for those reasons though that he gets such a hard time. He always seems to be in the news for the wrong reasons rather than not being in the news at all which is the way it should be. Frank Lampard, for example, is a model professional who is rarely in the news for anything other than football. Above all that though, I have to commend the man for taking it all on the chin and getting on with being a footballer. Stripped of the England captaincy twice (pre-judicially of course - how else does the FA do stuff?) and marked out for poor performances for Chelsea, he always seems to still be able to stand at the front of the team before every game looking as serene yet as focused as he has ever been.
John Terry will continue to be chanted at and called everything under the sun but he is not a racist. No doubt the FA will come up with a way of punishing him in the coming weeks but by the looks of it Anton Ferdinand will also be receiving a ticking off as well. It should never have gone to court but the outcome of the fact that it did is that he is officially, in the eyes of the law, the people closest to him and Chelsea fans, not a racist. The next time a set of fans chants 'you know what you are' at him, that's what he'll be thinking I'm sure.
John Terry will continue to be chanted at and called everything under the sun but he is not a racist. No doubt the FA will come up with a way of punishing him in the coming weeks but by the looks of it Anton Ferdinand will also be receiving a ticking off as well. It should never have gone to court but the outcome of the fact that it did is that he is officially, in the eyes of the law, the people closest to him and Chelsea fans, not a racist. The next time a set of fans chants 'you know what you are' at him, that's what he'll be thinking I'm sure.
Thanks for reading and I would be interested to here people's thoughts on this story either below or over on the Facebook page.
Martin
