‘It’s crazy, really, when I think about it like that.’

The rain at Stamford Bridge was torrential; the kind of downpour you think may never end. With the clocks having gone back the weekend before, the sky was charcoal black when the players re-emerged for the second half shortly after 4pm. Turning a page from October to November in the calendar of 2008 had seemingly roused what can only be described as proper English football weather.

Blues fans may have been soaked – especially those seated in the first few rows of each stand – but they were loving what they were seeing. Only 45 minutes had been played and Chelsea led Sunderland 3-0. Luiz Felipe Scolari’s side could even have scored more.

Visiting manager Roy Keane was less amused. Just before the half-time whistle blew, he was sent to the stands for excessively disputing a referee’s decision in the build-up to our third goal. Plus ça change.

Back in the warm and dry of the away dressing room, Keane decided to utilise his bench. For starters, El-Hadji Diouf would replace Martyn Waghorn. Then Keane turned to an 18-year-old midfielder who had caught the eye in the Sunderland academy. He had been in a matchday squad once before, at Villa Park a few weeks earlier, but didn’t get on. This would be his senior debut and, as it turned out, the start of an illustrious career.

Jordan Henderson did not know it then – nobody could have – but 784 appearances for club and country later, the stadium he first played in as a professional footballer is now his home.

‘It feels like a bit of a full-circle moment,’ says Henderson. We show him the footage of his 18-year-old mulleted self entering the fray at a sodden Stamford Bridge. He chuckles.

‘I can remember getting beat 3-0 at half-time. It wasn’t going great, and Roy Keane said: “Get yourself warm, you’re going on for the second half”. I went out, warmed up, and got ready to come on.

‘To play in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge against an amazing team with amazing players – Lampard, Ashley Cole, Terry, Drogba – was an incredible moment for me. We got beat by five, didn’t we?! So not the greatest game, but what an amazing feeling. To then be joining the club quite a few years later is pretty special.

‘As a player and a person, I’ve changed a lot since that day, but I’m very thankful for the opportunities I’ve had throughout my career. This is another. The story keeps going, and the chapters keep going. Hopefully they can keep going for a few more years yet. I’ve still got a lot left in me to give.’

The weekend before Henderson’s Stamford Bridge bow, our 86-game unbeaten home league record, spanning four-and-a-half years, was ended by Liverpool. The only goalscorer that day was Xabi Alonso.

Whereas Henderson was just starting out, learning the standards required at the top of the game, Alonso’s time in the Premier League was approaching its end. They overlapped in England for a season, 2008/09, and will now join forces having both cemented themselves as two of the foremost midfielders of their generation.

‘We had a very good chat,’ Henderson says.

‘I had huge admiration for Xabi as a player, and now I have huge admiration for him as a manager. What he’s done over the last few years has been pretty special.

‘Everyone that I know that has either worked with him or played with him has said very good things. Not one person had a bad thing to say about him. That speaks for him very highly.

‘Then when I spoke to him, I got a very good feeling that it would be an honour to come and play under him.’

Before Henderson gets to work with Alonso, he will finish his summer holidays, like every Chelsea player who reached the final weekend of the World Cup. He says his arm is feeling much better after the freak injury he suffered at the Azteca Stadium, and the enforced break will aid his freshness when he returns to Cobham.

Following what he describes as a ‘brilliant’ year at Brentford, one in which he showed he could still play at the highest level and helped earn his spot in England’s World Cup squad, Henderson is now determined to make a difference at Chelsea.

‘Someone told me once, it’s not so much what people think of you when you first walk in the door, it’s much more important what people think of you when you leave.

‘For me, it's just about giving everything, every single day, from now until the day that I do leave, both on and off the field. I just have to be who I have been pretty much my whole career, and try and help players around me, and try and help the team as much as possible.

‘The main goal is to be competitive, and to be successful. There is a lot to look forward to, but a lot of work to be done as well. It's about giving everything and being hard to beat every time we play.

‘I think we'll have the ability to do that. If you’re ready every single day, every single game, and you compete at the highest level, then with a squad like this and a manager like this, anything is possible.’

Henderson arrives at the Bridge having already achieved so much in the game. At 36, it would be easy for him to sit back and bask in his career highlights: the multiple major international tournaments, the trophies, the sheer longevity of it all.

What is abundantly clear from spending time in Henderson’s company, though, is that the fire inside him shows no sign of dimming. He has so much more to offer.

‘I've dedicated my life to the game ever since I was a kid, and that's never changed, really,’ he says.

‘I suppose that's just within me anyway, but then on top of that, of course, there's outside stuff that goes on that you can use as fuel to prove people wrong.

‘I feel like I've managed to do that a lot over the course of my career, and I suppose it'll be part of this opportunity coming here and me playing for Chelsea. I just try and focus on being the best version of myself and helping the team as much as possible.'

Henderson was a wide-eyed teenager when he first graced the Stamford Bridge turf on that wet November afternoon in 2008. It has been a hell of a journey since, but his race is not run. For the next time Henderson steps out at the Bridge he will be wearing Chelsea blue, ready to start writing another chapter in his fabled story.