John Terry Loses England's Captaincy

England's soccer team is in need of a new captain. Chelsea star John Terry lost the job after the news broke that he was having or had had an extramarital affair with Vanessa Perroncel, the former girlfriend of England and former Chelsea team-mate Wayne Bridge. The matter has mesmerized England's sports pages for the past week. What's laughable here is the belief that there needs to be some sort of moral qualification to be captain.

The title "captain" is really more honorific than anything else. The job of the captain in theory is to be sort of an on-field leader, but leaders emerge in a game whether they wear an armband or not. In practice, the job is to call "heads or tails" and to hold a pennant for the pre-game photo. It doesn't carry extra financial compensation, nor would it matter if the position were abolished.

Mr. Terry is a fine player, but he is also bit of a wanker. Brian Moore of The Telegraph observed, "At the root of his fine for drunken abuse and taunting of American tourists in the wake of the 9/11 outrage; getting kicked out of a nightclub for urinating in a beer glass and dropping the contents on the floor; parking his Bentley in a disabled bay and assisting a ticket tout to conduct a £10,000 tour of Chelsea's private training complex and sleeping with a friend's ex-partner, is the attitude that because of who he is he can do what he wants; a facet of the 'don't you know who I am' culture."

Nevertheless, such behavior raises the question of why, if morality is an issue, was he ever captain in the first place? Why not replace him earlier?

Frank Skinner, writing in The Times, said it best, "Do you really think that Terry or David Beckham, or Alan Shearer ever gathered the England players in a circle, pre-game, and spoke to them of St Crispin's Day?" He added that if Wayne Rooney shot and killed six people, Mr. Skinner would still want him to play in the World Cup this summer. To which the choir says, "Amen."

Mr. Terry's infidelity, like that of Tiger Woods, ought not to have been made public, and in a decent society, people would mind their own business. Surely, there are more important matters in Britain than where Mr. Terry sleeps and with whom. His wife and children, unfortunately, have suffered the added indignity of having this bit of dirty laundry aired so publicly.

And on Sunday, when Mr. Terry takes the field with Chelsea to play Arsenal, he will enjoy the full backing of The Kensington Review because that is what really matters.

© Copyright 2010 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.

Kensington Review Home