After visiting Auschwitz today with other members of the England squad John Terry spoke of how it put his achievement of single handedly winning the Champions League into perspective.
"Having visited the scene of such horror and suffering, I can fully empathise with how those poor people must have felt" he said. "I had similar feelings when we went 1-0 down in the semi final at the Nou Camp. You can't see a way back and it is just utter despair."
"Fortunately I showed a bit of fighting spirit and was able to lead the lads to a remarkable victory. I'm not saying that the millions of people who perished in these camps didn't have as much bottle as me, but maybe a few more of them would have survived if they had shown a bit more passion…like me."
"And", he continues, "the similarities with the final are uncanny. Millions of Jews rounded up by Germans and put into camps... us flying into Germany and playing in the final against Germans. Uncanny", he says shaking his head. "And, just like all those people who were sent here to die nobody gave us much of a chance going into the game against Bayern."
"I suppose the main difference was that the lads had me to lead them in Munich, whereas unfortunately the people in the concentration camps lacked a John Terry figure, someone who could show real bravery and heroism. I suppose if you had to compare any great people from that era with me then a cross between Oscar Schindler and Bobby Moore in Escape to Victory would come close. In both cases those men came through and delivered for the boys in exactly the same way that I did in the Champions League final that I won."
After leaving a photo of himself holding the Champions league trophy aloft as 'a fitting memorial' Terry had a few moments of quiet contemplation before concluding that, "It’s just a shame for all those people in these death camps that I wasn’t around back in olden times to liberate them personally. Fortunately my Grandad was there and found time to set them all free before he went and shot Hitler and won the war for England."
