The defender, sporting a head bandage from the off, poked the ball under Edwin van der Sar from an acute angle after a scramble and the ball went in off Loius Saha's boot.

It was a fittingly scrappy outcome to a contest that had it's moments, but rarely hit the heights that these two sides are capable of, littered as it was with misplaced passes and erratic finishing.

Tension, understandably, was never far from the surface, and the final moments were played out in an ugly atmosphere as scuffles threatened to break out after every tackle, a spat between Emmanuel Petit and Sean Davis having provided the initial spark. 

Chelsea's hopes took a blow after just three minutes when Graeme Le Saux was forced off with a recurrence of his hamstring injury. Albert Ferrer deputised.

The first chance of the game fell to the Chelsea matchwinner, as Andy Melville half-cleared a corner and Terry connected with a sweet volley from the left angle of the box which van der Sar brilliantly turned round the post.

Fulham were playing like a side who have seen their league form dip alarmingly in recent weeks - bereft of attacking ideas and woefully short on confidence - and it was past the half hour before Claudio Cudicini was seriously tested.

Midfielder Sylvain Legwinski surged through the middle, played a neat one-two with Steve Marlet, and and only a fine one-handed stop from Cudicini prevented the Cottagers from going in front.

Mario Stanic then embarked on a fine run which took him past Andy Melville and John Collins, but he was denied by van der Sar's legs but, from the ensuing corner, Terry pounced.

Eidur Gudjohnsen, like his strike partner Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, looked out-of-sorts, but he did set up Petit to send a 20-yarder spinning wide, before he curled a cross-shot - brilliantly or fortunately? - over van der Sar, but against the face of the far post.

This let off stunned Jean Tigana's men into a response, but despite plenty of possession they seemed reluctant to commit numbers forward, and when they did, Terry and Marcel Desailly were in commanding form.

Gudjohnsen, in keeping with the bulk of the contest, spurned two great chances to kill off the tie as the clock wound down; first blazing wildly over the top, then miskicking horribly in front of goal to the consternation of Jesper Gronkjaer, the supplier on each occasion.

Fulham never looked like punishing the Icelander for his profligacy and Cudicini's only real scare in three minutes of added time came from a mix-up with Gronkjaer.