A hotel foyer adjoining Stadium mk was the strangely nondescript location for John Terry to deliver the bombshell news that his extraordinary 21-year Chelsea career will end when the season finishes. It was clearly not carefully planned - not even by Terry - and the club had clearly not expected it to happen in this way. Terry was simply walking through a roped-off area of the stadium on his way to the Chelsea team bus when he was asked by a handful of waiting reporters if he could spare a few minutes to talk.Clubs are required to provide what is called a "mixed zone" area for journalists to approach players as they leave after a match and access is generally now quite carefully controlled. Chelsea had offered up Gary Cahill and Oscar to speak to the media but the unique status of a player like Terry means that he is pretty much left to decide for himself whether he wants to talk.Terry was actually signing a few autographs and posing for pictures with a few MK Dons fans who had also wandered into the foyer when he was asked to speak and, as he often is, was happy to stop. The match had been broadcast live by the BBC but no one from Chelsea had offered any hint of what was to come in the subsequent interviews.Gary Lineker later tweeted "could've told us" in response to the Terry news but the simple truth was that the Chelsea captain was not going to voluntarily offer up the news.True, Terry is savvy enough to know that the topic of his future would probably come up if he stopped for long enough but he still needed to be asked. And so, after some predictable questions about Chelsea's improved form, he was asked if there was any news on his contract.The expectation was that Terry would say something along the lines of being focused on the current season and that he was sure it would get resolved in the forthcoming months. Instead, there was a slight pause before his response: "Yes there is." He was simply going to tell it as he sees it."To be honest, I was in last week before the Arsenal game and it's not going to be extended," he said. "I knew before the Arsenal game so mentally I've kind of accepted it."I needed to know now, as I have done every January. Unfortunately it was a "no". It's not going to be a fairytale ending, I'm not going to retire at Chelsea."It took me a couple of days to get over it. We spoke about my legacy and coming back to the club when I finish. The most important thing now is to get us up the league."There was a slight hint of Terry's voice wavering but, by and large, the news was delivered in the same matter-of-fact manner as his earlier description of the match. He did not answer a question about whether there were tears or if Roman Abramovich had personally broken the news but did openly respond to every other query.Yes, he wanted to keep playing. Yes, it was the club's choice. No, he was not given a reason and yes, there had been talks about him returning in another capacity when his career does end. Terry then posed for more photographs and pictures before entering the team bus and, with that, we had confirmation that one of English football's most successful ever one-club alliances was coming to an end.Chelsea did not respond for another five hours and it was instructive that they should then make it clear that no definitive decisions had been reached. Their take was that Terry had asked for clarification in January and was told that - for now - he would not be offered a deal.The caveat, though, was that the situation could change. At one level, it was understandable that the current club board did not want to make such an important decision on such an influential player and dressing-room character before consulting with their next manager. Terry did confirm that he was told the situation could change when a new manager comes in but he certainly seems to regard the news as definitive. He appeared in no doubt that he will leave this summer.This whole fall-out, then, is an indirect consequence of the ongoing managerial instability at Chelsea and there will be further twists in this story. ..