Chelsea legend saved Blues from liquidation and rescued John Terry's career

Cleaning boots or sweeping dressing room floors never offered the panoramic views of scaling the pylons to polish floodlight bulbs at Stamford Bridge. But when Steve Wicks and Ray Wilkins were young apprentices, they were going up in the long before ’s rise to conquer the and Europe this century.

Six foot two and eyes of blue, Wicks was one of England’s best uncapped centre backs in an era when defenders wore missing teeth and facial scars as badges of honour. Before one game at , Brian Clough told him: “Hey, Wicksy, you’re far too pretty to be a centre-half. I’ve told Peter Withe to bash you up this afternoon, son.”

In less gilded times at Chelsea, Wicks and ‘Butch’ Wilkins, who called the tune in midfield like a pianist and captained the club at 18, were part of a generation who saved the Blues from liquidation.

“We went up in a crane-type machine - I think they call them cherry-pickers these days - that had a box on the front, the sort they’d use in New York to clean the windows on skyscrapers,” said Wicks of his lightbulb moment. “To be fair it was a great experience, if a bit hairy, but the views were fantastic and we cleaned the lenses on the floodlights with hot, soapy water.

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“I knew it must be safe because if it was that dangerous there’s no way the club would allow Ray to be involved - he was Chelsea’s young, uncut diamond, but it also showed there was no favouritism, no special cases in the youth team group.

“If the club was prepared to send its future star 150ft up in the sky with only a window cleaner’s box for protection, you knew it must be OK - although I doubt if our friends at health ’n’ safety would allow it now.”

Wicks’ new book* is an authentic portrait of Chelsea in the 1970s, in an age when players’ love for their club superseded tangible bling and designer labels.

And he wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

“My starting wage at Chelsea was £7.43-a-week, with £10 sent home direct to my parents, but money wasn’t the be-all and end-all,” he said. “I was playing for the club I supported as a kid and it felt fantastic. But the first real inkling that Chelsea were heading for the rocks financially was when we were playing away at and the coach driver was not allowed to leave Stamford Bridge by his bosses until he got paid the full hire fee up front.

“We had to have a whip-round to raise £600, which was hugely embarrassing. Then the club asked us to take a wage cut of £25-a-week per head, which was around 10 per cent of our salaries. We loved Chelsea so it wasn’t a matter of how much they paid us because it was all about wearing the blue shirt.

“But it was still not enough. Players had to be sold to keep the bank manager off our backs, and when Chelsea accepted a £525,000 bid from Derby for me, I didn’t want to go. They were offering me four times my basic salary plus a six-figure signing-on fee and a Saab Turbo, but I’d been at Chelsea with all my mates since I was 12 and it broke my heart to leave.

“When I told the chairman I wouldn’t go through with it, he looked a bit flustered, rang a senior administrator at Barclays Bank called Martin Spencer and handed me the phone. He told me that if I didn’t sign for Derby, Chelsea could not fulfil their fixtures and would go under. The chairman went on, ‘There’s no easy way of saying this, but the club’s future is in your hands. If you don’t go, the club will close.’

“It was like having a gun held to my head. In the end, I was left with no choice.”

One dark passage of Wicks’ memoir recalls the flesh-crawling conduct of ex-chief scout Eddie Heath, later unmasked as a serial manipulative sexual abuser.

Heath’s gifts as a talent-spotter were far outweighed by vulgar cynicism, and Wicks recalls the daily stampede from the showers to avoid a predator’s unwanted attention. A teenager’s brave stand against Heath’s blackmail is an uncomfortable read - but like the church, football has been forced to clean up its act.

Wicks’ raw honesty proved one of his greatest assets as a player, which probably answers why he refused to swindle by masking a serious back injury in a medical - and why he was picked out as the model ex-professional to help address his rough edges as an emerging prospect.

“JT is one of Chelsea’s greatest-ever players who captained England, but when he was younger his God-given talent was in danger of going to waste,” said Wicks, who is now 68. “I got a call from Gwyn Williams, who was everything from assistant manager to the chairman’s Mr Fixit, asking if I would come to the training ground for a ‘private chat’ with John and Jody Morris.

“They had been involved in one or two scrapes off the field and the club wanted me to let them know what they were in danger of throwing away. I told JT that the two words I never wanted to hear him say were ‘If only…’ and I had a measured, 25-minute chat with him at Harlington (Chelsea’s former training HQ).

“I’m not saying I changed the course of history, or saved John Terry’s career, but I hope it helped him stay on the path to five Premier League titles.”

• Nothing But the Truth! How The Youth Team Saved Chelsea FC, by Steve Wicks, published by Empire Publications, £19.99 hardback. Chelsea legends signing copies Under the Bridge June 7

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