Chelsea Legend Ron Harris on Diego Costa and How He'd Chop Down Messi & Ronaldo
Tommy Docherty didn’t call him the "late" Ron Harris without good reason. And his nickname on the terraces at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge home remains "Chopper" on the same grounds.
Harris liked to leave his mark wherever he travelled, shall we say.
Mention the former Blues captain’s name along the Fulham Road and the eyes of fans light up.
“Ron Harris is a legend,” they’ll tell you. “He was a great captain, a warrior. Nobody wanted to cross him. Ever.“
Indeed, they didn’t and there’s a long line of former greats of the English game only too willing to testify as to the wisdom of that sentiment.
Chopper ruled these parts for close to two decades, holding the proud title of Chelsea’s most successful captain for even longer.
It’s been over 50 years since he made his Chelsea debut as a teenager. But time, it seems, hasn’t softened him.
“Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo? Those two lads would get past me once but then I think the second time they’d be sitting in the press box with the likes of you,” he declares to Bleacher Report.
We’re speaking to Chopper just hours before Chelsea’s 1-1 draw with Burnley in the Premier League, which is rather apt given how that game has since been overshadowed by the controversy surrounding Ashley Barnes and that tackle on Nemanja Matic.
Barnes went in high on the Chelsea midfielder, scraping his studs down Matic’s shin to his ankle.
It was nasty, leaving Jose Mourinho to be particularly vocal about how Matic’s leg could have been broken as a result. The Chelsea boss was rightly frustrated that Barnes didn’t receive a red card, let alone a booking, so we can only imagine his reaction when the FA announced there would no retrospective action against him, either.
It was a tackle reminiscent of a bygone age in football, where players were able to dabble more openly in the dark arts and get away with it.
Harris was one of those, yet his record speaks for itself. The former Chelsea captain may have intimidated opponents, although career-threatening injuries were never on the cards.
He made a living out of hunting down opponents, but in the cut-throat world of 1960s football, you didn’t get by without knowing how “to handle yourself,” as Harris puts it.
It’s why he’s so fond of Diego Costa now.
“He’s one player I reckon would have coped,” he says of Chelsea’s current front man.
“Diego Costa is like Peter Osgood. Ossie was a fantastic player, but nobody intimidated him. When we played against teams like Leeds, they never got in his way.
“When you look at the clips from when we played, fellas like Ossie could look after themselves. It’s the same with Diego Costa now. He’s a goalscorer, but he knows how to look after himself.
“In my time, if I was marking a player and within the first few minutes I gave him a kick up the jacksie, if he accepted it, I knew I was in for an easy time.
“If you get someone like Diego Costa, who you can’t push around, it’s a little bit different. You know you’re in for a game.
“I would have relished the challenge to come up against Diego—in my time and now. On the footballing field, I’d have backed myself against anybody to win a tackle. Sometimes I was wrong, sometimes I was right, but I was always brought up to win.”
It’s the attitude that has ensured Harris has cemented himself in Chelsea folklore.
But it’s not only what he did on the pitch that fans remember him for and stories of the legendary five-a-side matches in the Stamford Bridge car park live on.
Back in Harris’ pomp, long before Stamford Bridge was redeveloped with hotels and restaurants, the players would meet before and after training for a friendly kickabout. Only to their captain, it was about playing for keeps.
Legend has it a few players even missed out on matches through injury after going up against Chopper, and he remembers it all well.
“We used to have some fantastic five-a-side games in that car park,” he says, a glint appearing in his eye.
“They were competitive, of course they were. All I can say is that I always wanted to win as you get nothing for being second best—five-a-side, seven-a-side, a practice match, I always wanted to win, even if it was against my teammates.
“People only know about winners and I wanted them to know about Ron Harris.”
Of which they did.
Times change, however, and as much as Chopper is adored as a cult figure, his like are all but extinct in football—now memories from the past.
Football has moved on and while he will begrudgingly agree it’s for the best, there are a few things from the past that Harris thinks should return to the modern game.
“I’ve got to say, it’d be interesting to see some of the young apprentices now doing what we used to have to; cleaning out the toilets, cleaning the terraces—it never did us any harm.”
Harris is referring to the old days of apprentice schemes at clubs, when players' duties included much more than honing their football skills.
It was also about learning skills for life, earning a living around the club by partaking in manual labour, as well as cleaning the boots and kit of the senior professionals.
“It was part and parcel of being an apprentice, cleaning the toilets and everything else. We had 14 apprentices when I was at Chelsea and we worked on a rota, two of us together.
“You’d spend a whole week doing all the chores, cleaning the players’ boots, mopping up the dressing rooms after training, collecting all the kit. Then you’d do four or five weeks' training at Hendon and then it’d be your turn again, going back to a week of chores around the club.
“Dickie Foss ran everything for the youth team back then and he was quite strict with the players. Every day we would come in and he used to supply you with a blazer and flannels. Even if you were doing your duties, you were still required to come in with a collar and tie on and change when you got to the dressing room.
“Players weren’t allowed to put a newspaper in their pocket or anything like that. It was strict discipline, but it worked. Dickie brought through some fantastic youngsters at Chelsea that went on and spent a long time with the club.”
Those players included Jimmy Greaves, Terry Venables, John Hollins, Peter Bonetti, Bobby Tambling, Osgood and Harris himself.
And that’s just to name a small group, all of which went on to become household names.
“You wouldn’t have wanted to step out of line with Dickie,” Harris continues. “He was like a sergeant major. You didn’t want to step out of line as he’d come down on you like a ton of bricks, but everybody respected him. You’ve only got to look at the players who came through to understand that.”
It was such discipline that made Harris the player he would become in Chelsea colours, setting an appearance record of 795 that remains unbeaten to this day.
“John Terry has won everything, but he won’t beat my record,” he proudly predicts.
Given the riches on offer to players these days, many stars from yesteryear would be forgiven if they wished they could relive their career in the modern era.
Harris now works the hospitality lounges on matchdays at Stamford Bridge, reliving some of the many stories he has shared with us.
Ever a man of principle, Chopper suggests he wouldn’t swap his hand, though.
“I’ll always be grateful to Tommy Docherty for giving me the chance he did,” says Chopper. “I was just a kid, but he put me in the side and I never let him down.
“Names or whatever never worried me. The toughest games that I ever played, though, were against an unfashionable fella named Andy Lochhead, who played for Burnley and Aston Villa.
“He was a big 6ft 2in forward who gave as good as he got and defenders don’t like that. They like it nice and easy, get their mark in early. If I could do that, I knew I was onto a winner, but Andy didn’t let you get away with it.
“As long as I was playing for Chelsea, whether it was Pele, Eusebio, Greavsie, Bobby Charlton, I’d go out there and think I could do them a job.”
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