And so we ask ourselves: how did it come to this? Did we miss the signs? Were there red flags that went unheeded, cries for help that fell on closed ears, forks in the road not taken? Or ultimately, for all our best efforts, was it always going to end like this? Is it, in fact, possible that John Terry was a far-right sympathiser all along?
Yes, it’s been a chastening week for those who have been fighting Terry’s corner for more than a decade. Who steadfastly defended him against the racism charges, who accepted his explanation that he was simply repeating what Anton Ferdinand had been saying to him, who turned up at his trial in full kit, who lamented his failure to land the coaching jobs he so coveted, who right to the end just wanted to believe.
Now, once again, the captain-leader-legend finds himself nailed to the cross, this time for the simple crime of endorsing an Instagram post by Rupert Lowe of Restore Britain, calling for “foreigners” to be banned from claiming benefits and the deportation of “migrants who are incapable of financially supporting themselves”. “100% yes,” Terry replied.
Not long afterwards his former teammate Dennis Wise responded: “200%.” But then, that’s elite athletes for you: always pushing each other, always raising standards. Which member of the 2000-01 Chelsea squad will dare to raise the stakes to 300%? Mario Stanic? Jesper Gronkjær? Ed de Goey?
Of course, this is not the first time Terry has emoted approvingly at the most right-wing member of parliament many of us have seen in our lifetimes, a man who recently authored a pamphlet entitled “Mass Deportations” that laid out plans for the removal of millions of what he so ambiguously describes as “illegal migrants”. A month ago, Lowe demanded a ban on the burqa, a ban on foreign-language signage at London Underground stations and a plea to “get our capital city back”. Terry responded with applause emojis.
At this stage, we can’t say what prompted Terry to intervene in this way. Perhaps this has been one giant misunderstanding. Perhaps he was simply repeating back an Instagram comment he had seen somewhere else, by way of repudiating the sentiment in the original comment. What, you’re saying I want to forcibly deport millions of migrants? And then that’s the part that gets screenshotted. You can’t trust anything you read these days.
But even if we are to take Terry’s sentiments at face value, you can see where the frustration stems from. In recent months, the former England captain has been increasingly vocal about the lack of coaching opportunities granted to him since his retirement, particularly at his former club, where he has a consultancy contract and mentors the academy sides for two days a month. In January he fancied himself for the Chelsea head coach after the departure of Enzo Maresca, only to be overlooked for Calum McFarlane and then Liam Rosenior.
“I don’t feel I need to sell John Terry as a manager,” he said in February. “If someone needs to win football matches, I’m not sure you’re going to get anyone better.”
Perhaps on reflection, Chelsea may come to regret their decision to pass on a coaching CV that at the time of writing consists of spells on the Aston Villa and Leicester backroom staff, plus a stint managing the 26ers team in the first two seasons of Baller League (ninth and fifth respectively, in case you’re wondering). But of course Terry’s very public journey into the internet pipeline, while arresting enough in itself, is by no means an isolated case.
To take but one example, Matt Le Tissier is still out there, arguing with Grok about chemtrails and accusing Elon Musk’s AI bot of spouting government propaganda. Of course Le Tissier disappeared down the chute some years ago, scandalised by Covid-19 vaccines and digital ID, spreading a conspiracy theory that the Russian massacre of Ukrainian citizens in Bucha was faked.
But you probably missed the news earlier this month that he had quietly returned to Southampton in an advisory role with the board. Le Tissier did not change. What changed was the cultural environment around him, a landscape in which far-right talking points are now everybody’s talking points, in which views once deemed beyond the pale are treated as valuable contributions to the discourse.
Rickie Lambert is still out there, railing at “digital enslavement” and sharing posts about a “global cult network” and demanding that everyone involved in the vaccine rollout be locked up. Joey Barton is still out there fuming about grooming gangs. Jonjo Shelvey has been extolling the virtues of Dubai in newspaper interviews, claiming that he no longer feels safe in London despite now living in a city recently under attack by Iranian missiles.
Perhaps the ex-footballer is particularly susceptible to this kind of radicalisation, spending pretty much their adult life in a kind of gilded cage, living by the hard uncomplicated certainties of performance and self-optimisation, before retiring and being forced to stare irrelevance squarely in the face. For some, clearly, the only way of recreating that buzz of instant adoration is through the dopamine syringes of social media, where the staid strictures of society can be safely circumvented, where you are still loved and adored, where you can live as a legend in perpetuity.
For Terry, a man still very much finding his feet in the right-wing grift, a world of opportunity and possibility awaits. First, the podcasts and YouTube appearances. Then the crypto and CBD deals, the material gifts of eternal martyrdom. Then perhaps the Question Time slot, the media empire, the parliamentary candidacy. It’s a tough gig, but someone has to do it. And remember: in this new world, nobody ever gets cancelled, only vindicated. There are no pariahs, just the right man in the right place at the right moment in history.
Jonathan Liew was this week named columnist of the year in the Sports Journalists’ Association awards
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