Sunday Times Cole interview - Thanks, DILL!

pettyfog · Jan 23, 2005

Fulham?s top goalscorer is in love with the game again, putting the misery of his fallout with Graeme Souness far behind him

Andrew Cole can remember when the love came back. It was at the weirdest of times, a moment when the old game that holds so many of us in its thrall crept up, slung on the handcuffs and made him a willing captive again. We are sitting in the clubhouse at Fulham?s training ground in southwest London, and Cole?s thoughts drift beyond the cold and damp outside to the same venue on a hopeful summer?s day. ?Pre-season,? he recalls. ?I hate pre-season with a passion: the long-distance running, the hot mornings. So it was funny.? He stops and smiles.

?When I came here to do pre-season,? he explains, ?I was, ?Wow?. It was like going back to the good old days. You came, you worked hard, but the laughter was there. You worked hard, but in a happy atmosphere, and after a week, maybe two, I was saying to myself, ?Yeah, this is what I?ve been missing?. ?These last six months have been unbelievable for me. I love my football again ? love it with a passion. And that?s so important, because I?m at a stage of my career where I just want to enjoy it. I look forward to coming to work, look forward to the training, look forward to the games, look forward to the banter. I?m like a child again.?

Fulham have given Cole back the love. In return, he has gifted to them goals ? nine already, at a rate of nearly one every two games, the ratio he achieved in his salad days. Encouraged by Chris Coleman to say his piece around the dressing room and training ground, he has shared with the younger first-team players the know-how gained from winning 10 major trophies. He has brought the side a focal point it had lacked since the departure of Louis Saha. He has offered them ? yes ? smiles.

How his short career here has contrasted with the 2 1/2 years he endured at Blackburn, where, apart from a few good memories (notably his winning goal in the 2002 League Cup final), the overall flavour of his experience was sour. The deterioration of his relationship with Graeme Souness can be measured by the gap between the ?8m the manager spent to sign Cole from Manchester United and the fee of zero he jettisoned him for.

?I?ll be brutally honest with you,? says Cole. ?I was at a stage, in my last season at Blackburn, where I wasn?t bothered whether I was in the game or not, because the relationship I had with the guy up there (Souness) was never going to work. In the end, I just didn?t want to be there ? not Blackburn, because there was nothing wrong with Blackburn, it?s a lovely club and the fans and the players were great ? I mean working under him.

?It was a vicious circle. He tried to dominate someone he couldn?t dominate. He couldn?t dominate me. That?s just the way I am. I won?t be dominated by someone I don?t like. So in the end, we just went round and round and it became obvious the best thing for the pair of us was to go our separate ways.?

Cole never complained publicly ? ?I?d like to think I?ve got a little bit of class about myself; I didn?t want to hurt the club? ? but there was no hiding his spats with Souness. ?A lot of the boys used to pull me aside and say, ?Come on, Coley, we?re in the relegation fight, we need you?, and I?d always say, ?As long as I?m here, I?ll always give 100% for you guys, the board and the supporters?. There was never a point when anyone could say, ?He didn?t try a leg in that game?. But in my heart, for a long time, I knew I had to leave.?

Every month Cole waited, he lost a little bit more of the love. When he finally escaped to Fulham last July, it was with the sense that although his lot would improve, he?d never get back his old feeling for his profession, the feeling that had made all the downsides since leaving home at 14 to attend the FA?s National School at Lilleshall worth it. ?I really had got to that stage,? he says.
That is why these past six months have been such a happy surprise. ?It was strange. I think I spoke to Cookie (Coleman) just twice on the phone before joining, and the first time I met him was after I?d signed. I?d never have believed I?d get on with the manager so well, because past reputations have made me out to be a certain way. So when I did meet Cookie, I sat down with him and said, ?You know, people have this perception of me?, and he turned around and said, ?I?m not bothered. It?s for me to make my own opinion of you as a player and a person?. That encouraged me straight away.?

PERCEPTIONS. The same things have been said about Cole so many times that he knows the words by heart. Sullen. Surly. Arrogant. Awkward. They have followed him like stalkers. His difficulties with Souness were seen by his critics as further evidence of an anti- social personality (others may have noted that Cole is only one of a long list of players ? and it is continuing at Newcastle ? to fall out with the manager). Like the Andrew/Andy thing being a big deal (he prefers Andrew but is really not bothered), it comes down, he believes, to the misleading nature of perceptions.
?I don?t know how this image of me started,? he says. ?When I was younger, I was never one who wanted to be on the front cover of this or that. I never wanted to do interviews. That?s why people may have said, ?He?s sullen?. I?ve never been a player who?s looked for glamour. I turn down a lot of things (he recently declined a ?250,000 offer to make an advert) and in the beginning people didn?t like it. Maybe it?s also how I?ve played my football. I?ve never run about smiling, but I?m in a cut-throat business. You?ve got to win.

?People ask me all the time what it?s been like (living with a negative image) and I say, ?I?ve had it for 10 or 12 years of my career and it?s not for me to tell people to come and get to know me?. If those are the perceptions people want to have, there?s nothing I can do about it. I know who I am and the people close to me know who I am. That?s what?s important.

I?m not going to lie and say it?s never hurt, but I?ve achieved things I never thought I would. There?s been a lot of ups and downs, but I rode them out. I?ve shown character and had a lot of strong people behind me.?

Cole sits with his arms crossed, a shield across his heart. Although his tone throughout the interview grows increasingly relaxed and smiles come, the arms, which occasionally come loose to make a gesture, always return to their folded position. The boxer throws up his guard once again. ?Everything?s press-driven,? he says. ?Recently, people have looked at me in a different light. It goes full circle and people say, ?Hey, he?s a charming young man?, whereas a couple of years before they?d say, ?Arrogant, sullen?. Then again, I?m coming to the end of my career.?
He was raised in Nottingham, the second-youngest of eight children born to an immigrant couple from Jamaica. His dad, a miner, ?was always grafting. I?ve always been a grafter, too?.

His mother told him right from the start to work hard and stand on his own two feet. ?She always said, ?If you don?t like something, you must speak your mind?. I took it on board literally,? Cole says, ?and I?ve upset a lot of people along the way.?

After making the decision to attend Lilleshall ? ?You miss home, but I knew I had to go. You get into certain stuff with your pals you shouldn?t and I wanted to save my mum and dad from heartache? ? he joined Arsenal, but made just one substitute appearance before George Graham sold him to Bristol City. ?I spoke my mind to George, a few too many times,? he recalls.

Kevin Keegan knew how to get the best out of him, but perhaps there has only been one manager, until Coleman, who fully appreciated the up-front nature of this player. It is 10 years since Sir Alex Ferguson effected one of the most startling transfers in British football history when he enticed Newcastle, for whom Cole had scored 41 goals the previous season, to sell him to Manchester United.

?Fergie?s outspoken too,? says Cole. ?You?d have stand-up rows with him at certain times, but after, it was always finished. I remember missing a chance in the last minute against Chelsea, when we drew 3-3, and we had a massive row. Yet on the Wednesday we played PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League and before the game we had a laugh about what had happened and it was gone. I ?m always going to have a row with someone, that?s my nature, but when you know you can have a row with the manager and it?ll be forgotten, you can play for a guy like that.?

Ferguson used to joke that Cole ?could start a fight in an empty room?. Cole laughs. ?Yeah. He knew I was a determined so-and-so, and he knew what buttons to press to get the best out of me. He likes strong characters and you only have to look at the players he brings to United to know that. At United, you face a lot of pressure and you have to be mentally strong.? Ferguson never wanted Cole to leave when he did ? after being relegated to the bench by Ruud van Nistelrooy?s arrival in July 2001 ? and he still speaks wistfully about Cole?s partnership with Dwight Yorke. Although Roy Keane was the engine behind United?s Treble in 1999, the 53 goals provided by the two strikers in all competitions provided the petrol.

Why were they so good together? ?Oooph. I don?t know,? says Cole. ?I?ve been asked so many times. When Dwight came originally, I wasn?t going to play, because the manager tried to buy Patrick Kluivert (a straight replacement for Cole). He tried Yorkie with Teddy (Sheringham), then Ole (Gunnar Solskjaer), and finally he played up front with me. It was a game against Southampton in October and we won 3-0, and it just clicked from there. We carried on plundering goals. Man U have always had a player up front who drops short, and that?s what Dwight used to do, while I?d run on behind (the defence). Our relationship was frightening.?
The bond extended beyond the playing field, into friendship. Cole and Yorke are still mates, in contact at least once a week, and when we spoke Cole was looking forward to seeing his old pal at Fulham?s game against Birmingham yesterday. ?Maybe he?ll give me a lift home (to Cheshire, where both men still have their family homes) afterwards.

?We get on because we?re total opposites. That?s why, at first, people couldn?t believe our friendship. He?s the smiling assassin, and I?m just the assassin. Yorkie?s having a few problems in his career at the moment, but he?ll get through them.?

The struggles both players had after their annus mirabilis were perhaps natural. ?Once you hit such a high, you always want to hit that high, but it can never be surpassed,? says Cole. ?We tried. We huffed and puffed. We wanted to win the Champions League again the year after and it didn?t happen, but I?m a proud person and 1999 is the thing I?m proudest of in my career.?

The biggest frustration was England. No matter how many goals he scored or medals he won, Cole was never going to dislodge Alan Shearer, having to make do with substitute appearances and the odd game here or there. His one strike in 15 internationals did not reflect the talent of somebody who scored so regularly for United at Champions League level.

?You can ask yourself what happened a million times, but England just wasn?t meant to be,? he says. ?People say you can?t score on the international scene but, no disrespect, I was scoring against the best defenders in the world every week (in the Champions League), so is anybody really saying I couldn?t have done it for England? The image thing didn?t help me. The press have been picking the England team for however long.?

Cole, now 33, has 18 months left on his contract at Fulham, ?unless Cookie and the chairman want to sort me out with something more?, and is looking forward to every day of it. ?I get a bit narky when we don?t win, but my wife has seen the change in me and so have the kids,? he says. ?All my three-year-old (daughter, Faith) wants to talk about is Fulham, and my oldest (son, Davante, nine) is the same. For the two years at Blackburn it was different. Even my son realised, ?My dad?s not the happiest?, and knew not to ask about work.?

In the summer he may do a coaching course. ?I?ll do the badge. As for being a coach, I?m not sure it?s in my make-up. You can?t be too outspoken.?

He grins. Later, when he does the same in front of the camera, the photographer says: ?Thanks for smiling. I thought I?d have to coax one out of you.? Cole sighs and wags his head. ?Perceptions, mate.?
Click to expand...

- Sunday Times Print edition, Jan 23

Scan, Courtesy of Dill on Fulham MB

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Sunday Times Cole interview - Thanks, DILL!

pettyfog Well-Known Member

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Sunday Times Cole interview - Thanks, DILL!

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