Whoever thought I'd have JT as Captain of the King of Shaves team! As reported in The Times - read on...
September 03, 2007
Taking on John Terry - a hack's tale
John Terry knows how to look after himself. The first thing you notice when you are being marked by the England captain is how good he smells. An invisible cloud of expensive aftershave lets you know that you are playing against someone who earns more than £100,000 a week and a forearm smash in the back whenever you get too close reminds you that he is one of the best defenders in the world.
Strictly speaking Terry should not even have beeen playing. After all, he had only just finished a Chelsea training session when he arrived at a match between football journalists organised by one of his sponsors, King of Shaves. The afternoon was supposed to go something like this: a bunch of overweight, unfit hacks run around a pitch making fools of themselves while the England captain chuckles on the sidelines. Isn’t that fat bloke who just tripped over his laces the expert who gave me four out of ten in my player ratings last week? And isn’t that muppet who just collided with a post the bloke who reckoned that Steven Gerrard should have been the England captain instead of me?
But boys will be boys and as soon as Terry realised that a game was about to start he wanted to get involved. Within seconds, he had a white top on and was itching to line up along team-mates he probably loves to hate. For the next 30 minutes he had to make do with a Daily Star hack as his defensive partner instead of Ricardo Carvalho and when he wanted to clear his lines he had to aim for the head of the man from the Daily Express instead of Didier Drogba.
Luckily for the opposition, made up of the finest players that the News of the World, the Mail on Sunday, the Sunday People and Four Four Two magazine could muster - and yours truly - Terry took his foot off the gas once his team had cruised into a 3-0 lead after five minutes.
Still, it's the taking part that counts although marking Terry at a corner is not for the faint-hearted. No matter how hard you try, you are never going to beat the England captain in the air. And what about doing him for pace while chasing an aimless punt upfield? No chance. He is captain of England for a reason and you end up looking for a hedge to hide behind while he slides away with the ball glued to his right foot.
The cameras on the touchline at Queens Park Rangers training ground near Heathrow in London were trained on Terry but the defender was not the only famous face on the pitch. The man in black was Dermot Gallagher, the former Premier League referee, who keept his cards in his pocket even when the man from the News of the World followed up an assault on an opponent with an outrageous dive in the penalty area.
“Ref, have a word,” Terry yelled as Gallagher turned his back and blowed for half time. So far, so bad. Time to catch your breath while contemplating how stupid you would look if you pretended that you had a calf strain and had to sit out the second half. Could you live with yourself knowing that you were such a physical wreck that you couldn't play football for more than 15 minutes. No chance. Time to muster up the spirit of Liverpool v AC Milan in the European Cup final in Istanbul and dream the impossible. Me and the bloke from Four Four Two can turn this around. We can beat the England captain for pace. We can beat him in the air. We can show him that we are more than peddlars of truths and rumours.
Then Terry put on a blue shirt. The same shirt as we were wearing. He was going to play on our team. We woouldn't have to chase shadows any more. I could play a one-two with the England captain. I could give and go, hit it long, drop deep, play in the hole, spin off my man and ghost in at the far post. Are you watching Frank Lampard?
Fifteeen minutes later and a couple of sweet finishes from the man from Four Four Two later and it’s 3-3 and time to collect a medal from the England captain. “JT, I promise I’ll never give you less than 8 out of 10 ever again,” I said.
“Yeh, whatever,” Terry replied.
Kaveh Solhelkol
John Terry is a King of Shaves ambassador. For a chance to win your team a training session with the England captain, visit www.shave.com/johnterry
