JT: I've not been fit for years

Published Nov. 19, 2010 8:57 a.m. ET

foxsports

Chelsea captain John Terry has revealed that injury problems have left him short of full fitness for the last five years.

He has finally been forced to take a break and seek medical assistance after deciding that he could no longer rely on pain-killing injections to get him through games.

Terry hopes a long-term cure for the problem can be found, as he admits it has been a long time since he could consider himself to be in full health.

"The last time I played fit? Maybe five years, maybe more, I can't really remember," he told the Daily Mail.

"If you can take an anti-inflammatory and struggle through, you do.

"The pain from this injury is the worst I have had, there is no way I can continue.

"I'm 30 next month and I've got to start looking after myself."

Terry once said, ahead of the 2008 Champions League final, that he was fully prepared to face the consequences of his actions and did not mind if he spent his retirement in a wheelchair if he could look back on a successful career.

He has altered that stance somewhat since then, though, with the England international mindful that his young family must be his priority.

"I'd like to rethink the wheelchair idea, please."

Terry has also confessed to his disappointment at seeing the England armband stripped from him by Fabio Capello in February 2010.

The Three Lions coach took that course of action in the wake of allegaions about Terry's private life, and the Blues ace admits to feeling slightly aggrieved at the decision.

He said: "I understood the decision at the time.

"Fabio said he wanted to take the spotlight off me, although if I am honest I thought it had the reverse effect. But I would never dislike him for that."

He added: "I suppose the only time I felt disappointed was during the next game against Egypt, which was a friendly, and the armband got passed around between five or six players."