Chelsea legend Terry names two clubs that bid for him during iconic career at Stamford Bridge

John Terry has admitted that Manchester City tried to lure him away from Chelsea in his playing days, with Huddersfield the only other side to have put an offer on the table.

The former England captain established his ‘Captain, Leader, Legend’ reputation at Stamford Bridge over the course of a 19-year spell as a senior star in west London.

A brief loan spell at Nottingham Forest was taken in during his time with the Blues, while boots were hung up after a season at Aston Villa – where he is now assistant manager to Dean Smith.

At the peak of his powers, Terry was considered to be one of the finest centre-halves on the planet.

Unsurprisingly, his qualities drew plenty of admiring glances from afar and generated the odd round of transfer talk.

The first of those almost took him away from Chelsea, with an offer from Huddersfield having been accepted in 2000.

Terry told an Instagram Q&A with snooker icon Stephen Hendry: “During my time one of only two clubs that approached me were Huddersfield when I first came through.

“Steve Bruce was manager of Huddersfield. Chelsea accepted a bid and [Gianluca] Vialli said no. Which obviously I’m very thankful to Luca for, he gave me my debut. Great man, great manager.”

Several years later, in 2009, Terry registered on the radar of Manchester City as they started to piece together a star-studded squad with the billions of owner Sheikh Mansour.

Terry added: “Then obviously the Man City one, Man City approached Chelsea, made an offer official.

“Simple as this, I sat with the owner, face-to-face and said ‘I never want to leave Chelsea, that’s a fact. If you want to sell me then it’s a different story. But I’m telling you off the bat that I never want to leave this football club’

“Within that, I was due a new contract, we shook hands on a new contract, agreed a deal and I stayed another five, six years after that. ‘

“Them two clubs were the only two that come in for me.”

Terry took in 717 appearances for Chelsea, many of them as club captain, and helped the Blues to five Premier League titles, five FA Cup wins, three League Cup triumphs, a Champions League crown and Europa League success.