Petr Cech – Chelsea FC’s Greatest
By Lee Fraser
Petr married Martina Čechová (nee Dolejšováand) and has 2 children Adéla Čechová (born 23rd Jan 2008) and Damián Čech (born 16th June 2009).
Damián stole every Chelsea FC fan’s hearts when he saved that “shot” from Leo Torres in 2013 in the on pitch celebrations in front of The Shed, truly a chip off the old block!
Petr is a multi linguist speaking 4 languages including his newest conquest Spanish and studies history and psychology, and this yearning for knowledge comes across in all his interviews. He comes across as a highly intelligent, down to earth man who engages brain before mouth, a rare talent these days in the modern footballer!
This is not that surprising when you consider his early childhood days were spent under communist rule in Czechoslovakia. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph in December 2008 he describes how it was as a communist child “At schools there were programmes for football, ice hockey, handball, volleyball and basketball. You could spend your time with any sort of sport. I really enjoyed it. Being a child in that system was not that bad because you had so many opportunities to enjoy yourself after you finished your school day. Nowadays it is different.”
“With the system you had to attend the classes, do the sports. I think sometimes with kids they might not want to do a sport but when they try it they really like it. A lot of the time it worked like that. Nowadays you have no duty to attend a sports class, it’s up to you. The problem is that kids now are spending all their time on the PlayStation, on the internet. I think this is what has changed the most.”
Petr himself says that there are a few things that have influenced him as a person as well as his early formative years, his marriage to Martina and the birth of his children are obvious ones, but also the life threatening injury he received on October 14th 2006 are all listed as defining moments.
Petr is an accomplished drummer who has had a jam session with Chelsea FC fan and Queen drummer Roger Taylor in the past, and seems to have been spending some of his spare time recently brushing up on his skills and posting them on YouTube. Here he is covering his favourite band, The Foo Fighters and “Walk”.
Big Pete is also very active on social media, especially Twitter and has even been known to partake in a little banter from time to time in true Chelsea FC family style!
Next: Petr Čech – October 14th 2006.