John Terry Names Most the Talented Chelsea Youngster Who Didn't Make the Grade

Chelsea legend John Terry has named former midfielder Rob Wolleaston as the most talented player he knew at Stamford Bridge that didn’t make the grade, citing the importance of mental strength to be a professional football at the highest level.

Despite being called on to train with the first-team as a teenager when Ruud Gullit was manager in the mid/late 1990s, Wolleaston only ever played twice for Chelsea’s senior side – a League Cup defeat against Huddersfield and a famous 4-1 loss to Sunderland in the Premier League.

“He was like a midfielder or winger [and] had so much ability,” Terry said of Wolleaston during a social media live stream, as quoted by Metro.

“I still know Rob now, but mentally [he] didn’t have that to go and push himself.

“He [was chosen] to train with the first team at a really young age, 17 or 18, did really well and Gullit told him he was going to play in the first team in a cup game. He then phoned up on the day of the game and said he was sick.

“All of us, if we were sick or felt like we were at the end of the world, we would have still gone and played the game, we wouldn’t have given up that opportunity. He actually [did] it two or three times and he was just not mentally ready for the game, but ability-wise, [he was] incredible.”

Wolleaston had a number of lower league loans away from Stamford Bridge and was still a Chelsea player as late as 2003 when he was released, by which time Terry was an established first-teamer and only 12 months shy of being made permanent club captain.

Wolleaston joined Bradford, before spells at Cambridge and Oxford. He dropped out of the Football League in 2008 to join Rushden & Diamonds and continued his career at non-league level until 2014 when he retired following a three-year spell with Harrow Borough.

Chelsea’s youth ranks had produced a handful of first-team players in the late 1980s and 1990s, including Frank Sinclair, Eddie Newton, Andy Myers, Michael Duberry and Jody Morris in the years before Terry himself emerged.

But after Terry made the permanent step up to senior level in 2000, it was nearly 20 years before another home-grown Chelsea youngster became a first-team regular, despite the club’s considerable dominance at FA Youth Cup level.

Things changed when Ruben Loftus-Cheek played 40 times in all competitions last season, with new manager Frank Lampard bringing Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount, Fikayo Tomori, Reece James and most recently Billy Gilmour into the picture this season.

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