TheBoyEllis Blog

John Terry: Enough Already

Yesterday, I drove roughly 350 miles. Along the majority of those congestion-strewn roads, I listened to Talksport. I usually do this while out on the road and it isn’t typically a problem. Yesterday, however, it was.

For a total of around 6 hours I was treated to one long, continuous debate about John Terry, his extra-marital relations and whether or not he should still be England captain.

Every DJ on the station (and not in the least Stan Collymore who I think may have been playing with himself whilst endlessly spurting pointless superlatives about the supposed forthcoming meeting between Terry and Capello; “Capello is a greatly morale man and will not at all be concerned with what John Terry does behind closed doors away from the big lights and spectacle of the beautiful game”) simply repeated their views again and again. As did the callers. And the guests. When all was said and done, there were only about 3 different views; they were simply regurgitated, modified and drawn out each time they were expressed. I literally had a headache as I finally turned into my street at the end of the day.

I’m not going to embellish on this massively boring subject too much further, but I will give my opinion.

What John Terry does off the pitch is his business and his business only. I find all the debate over the affair hugely uncomfortable. It’s clear us Brits have a massive problem with sex (more so than the US, I’d say) and are so easily appalled by anything relating to it that it is invariably made a big deal of when something like this happens.

He’s a great defender and a very good captain. What he does away from the pitch is totally irrelevant. End of story. The only reason this has been made front page news is because the way in which everything is sensationalised these days.

Whenever we approach a big tournament like the World Cup, the press in this country reach for their knives and start their level best to completely screw up any chance England have of doing well. Why wouldn’t they? We love wallowing in our own misery in this country; if England go out in the group stages they’ll sell lots more papers.

Finally, are footballers role models? No, of course they’re not. They swear, spit, fight, cheat and spunk their ridiculous earnings up the wall. Any notion that the are to be held on a pedestal by anyone is daft. Yes, kids admire them and want to be them, but that’s life, I’m afraid. I’m sure they want to be film stars, too, but how many parents would want their child to turn into Lindsey Lohan?

There we go. 463 words and I’m done.