John Terry reveals he went through a year of daily painkiller injections to play for Jose Mourinho's Chelsea side

1/14
James Benge2 June 2017

John Terry has revealed that he required a daily course of painkiller injections for an entire season under Jose Mourinho because the then-Chelsea manager was so desperate for him to play.

The 36-year-old has played his final game for Chelsea and said farewell to Stamford Bridge after nearly two decades in the Blues side with a guard of honour in last month’s 5-1 win over Sunderland.

Terry’s association with the club will formally end on June 30 when his contract expires and for now he is mulling over whether to take up any of the offers to continue playing or move into coaching.

Reflecting on his time at Chelsea in an interview with the club website, Terry revealed the lengths he had willingly gone to so as to never miss a game for his beloved Blues.

He said: "I remember in Jose Mourinho’s years he was desperate for me to play or train when I had a broken toe and a broken bone in my foot.

"I had to have two injections in my toe every day for a whole year, one before training and sometimes the doctor would have to come out and re-inject me because it wore off in training if it was a longer session than an hour.

"It was just a given for me. I would do it again tomorrow because it sounds crazy but you would give your life for the football club when they have given you so much over the years."

"You can’t [let people know about the pain] but after games you do think I did well to get through that one, or there would be times before a game when you think I am struggling here, but you go out and the pain goes like that because you are in that zone and because the adrenaline kicks in.

"You have the supporters singing your name and that is when they have a massive part to play. When they sing names and give people a lift it is massive."

Terry admitted he was not alone in battling through the pain barrier to play a part for Chelsea.

"I have seen others do it, too," he added. "David Luiz and Gary Cahill, for the pair of them before the [2012] Champions League Final [in which Chelsea defeated Bayern Munich on penalties without their club captain] to not play or train for weeks before was incredible.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in