The scene at the end was the perfect cliché of the never-say-die, heroic captain. One point in the bag and another seemingly made, John Terry sauntered towards the band of Blues, peeled off his shirt and waded bare-chested over the advertising hoardings to hand his Chelsea jersey to one of his disciples. As he walked away, he banged his fist on his heart.
In Planet Terry, the vignette represented how fond he is of a performance that reeks of his own determination to tackle adversity head on. But the problem with Planet Terry is that there is no place for the kind of subtlety that would better suit his current circumstances. As Liverpool discovered with their T-shirt idea, the rest of the world does not always appreciate bravado in times of controversy.
Mind you, keeping his head down has never been part of his approach during an eventful 13-year career. And besides, do the boos hurt? Do the chants cut deep? Does the microscope burn? It has never appeared that way, and few players are as efficient at erecting a force field that such stuff bounces off. What wounds John Terry is losing, conceding goals, straining to be half the player he was in his pomp.
I'm looking at key words and phrases like "cliche", "Planet Terry", "bravado" and, of course, the final sentence of the first few paragraphs quoted above. I see a lot of tongue in cheek, and I'll grant you a hint of grudging appreciation, but certainly no grovelling hero worship.
Anyway, I didn't think it was a great game at all, mainly because we didn't win and didn't play as well as we should have, but I did quite enjoy it and I agree that it was (perhaps surprisingly) played in a very good spirit.
And in amongst the inevitable abuse of Terry, I had to have a laugh at the Chelsea fans chanting "Chelsea reject" at one of the best players on the pitch!
