His non-celebration suggested he had banned himself from displaying any happiness amid the ongoing controversy of superinjunctions, wagsharing, question marks over the England captaincy, and speculation about what disciplinarian national team manager Fabio Capello thinks of it all.

He may be a multimillionaire superceleb with a potentially legend-making World Cup ahead of him, but yesterday he was just one more man worrying what his missus was going to do to him when he got home from work.

I must have been psychic when, two weeks ago, in blissful ignorance of Terry's extra-marital activities, I sat down to write the following in my programme column for the Chelsea game.

"Celebrity does funny things to people," I wrote. "There are a few footballers around who could tell a story or two about that. Not to mention footballers' wives."

No sign of Mrs Terry on Saturday nor of Wayne Bridge's former girlfriend Vanessa Perroncel, now seemingly in the safe and comforting hands of Max Clifford.