The footballer John Dempsey, who has died aged 78, was an uncompromising central defender with Chelsea when they won the FA Cup in 1970 and the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1971. Although most accustomed to clearing out attackers and winning balls with his aerial power, Dempsey made significant attacking interventions in both those triumphs, in particular during the European Cup Winners’ Cup final replay in Athens against Real Madrid, when on a rare excursion into the opposition penalty box he came up with a crisply struck volley from 12 yards to set Chelsea on the way to a 2-1 victory. He also contributed a headed goal in a fifth round defeat of Crystal Palace during the victorious FA Cup campaign of the previous year.
Those goals – two of only seven he scored in his 207 matches for Chelsea between 1969 and 1978 – gave a clue to Dempsey’s schoolboy exploits as a striker. But his primary concern was to shore up the defence, in combination with the rugged trio of David Webb, Ron “Chopper” Harris and Eddie McCreadie, described by their teammate Peter Osgood as the “four assassins at the back”.
