An even greater love...
So this is a Roman site, but I must be indulged here. Today I watched my beloved Blues win the Carling Cup against a young Arsenal side that gave us a bloody good run for our money. But all that was nothing. Around the hour mark in the match our Captain, John Terry, was stretchered off after swallowing his tongue and being KO'd for a whole 5 minutes, after a sickening (accidental) injury in the penalty box. Despite being a central defender, he went in for an attacking header and firmly connected with the boot of Arsenal's Diaby, which wrenched his chin back and nearly knocked his head off his shoulders. These things happen, it is football. The Arsenal player responsible was in tears. JT himself, knocked out cold, came round in hospital and could not remember anything about the day at all beyond eating his breakfast. After scans on his neck, which showed it wasn't broken, and brains scans that showed ho haemorrhage, he insisted on going back to the Stadium to catch the end of the celebrations and thank the lads for winning the game for him.
There are jokes about Terry in the British Press, and among British football fans. If JT's leg was severed in a match, so the saying goes, he would have the physio sew it back on and he would play on. Beneath the humour there is the truth of the matter: this is a working class hero who cares little for the money he earns - having been at Chelsea since he was a YTS lad of 15 - who bleeds for his team, and will one day, as I said to my daughter today, be prepared to offer his life for a mere football team. It's the stuff heroes are made of. Old-fashioned heroes. The boy is an old-fashioned centre-half who will dive in amongst feet when there are 92 minutes on the clock and his team are winning 4-0 - just to stop the opposition scoring. Among today's mercenaries who come to 'big' clubs so that they can earn
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