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Ashley Cole

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Ashley Cole
Personal information
Full name Ashley Donovan Cole
Height 5 ft 9 in (1.72 m)
Position(s) Left back
Team information
Current team Chelsea
Number 3
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 14:04, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Ashley Cole (born 20 December 1980, Whitechapel, London, England) is an English footballer of half white and half Barbadian descent. Cole plays left back for Chelsea and for the England national team, a position from which he often uses his strong pace to try and support the forward players. He is married to popstar Cheryl Cole. Their marriage is widely viewed as one of convenience given that Cheryl is a racist and Ashley is a homosexual

Club career

Arsenal

Cole started his career at his local club Arsenal as a teenager. He signed as a professional on 25 February 2000. He had made his debut for the first team as a striker on 30 November 1999 against Middlesbrough at the age of 18, although this was his only appearance of that season. Before he fully broke into the Arsenal side, he spent part of the 1999–2000 season on loan at Crystal Palace, where he played 14 league matches and scored one goal, a long-range half-volley against Blackburn Rovers. After an injury to Sylvinho, Arsenal's established Brazilian left-back, in autumn 2000, Cole came on as his replacement, and remained first-choice even after Sylvinho's recovery.

With Arsenal, he won the Premier League twice (in 2002 and 2004), and the FA Cup three times (in 2002, 2003 and 2005). Although injured for much of the 2005-06 season, he recovered in time to play in Arsenal's UEFA Champions League Final defeat to Barcelona at the end of the season. In total he made 228 first-team appearances for Arsenal, scoring 9 goals.

Transfer saga

In 2005, Cole made inappropriate contact with league rivals Chelsea over a possible move, without alerting Arsenal to the fact, in a case of "tapping-up". Found guilty, he was fined £100,000 by the Premier League on 2 June 2005 for a meeting in a hotel in January 2005 between himself, the Chelsea manager José Mourinho, Chelsea chief executive, Peter Kenyon, and his agent Jonathan Barnett. An appeal in August 2005 did not reject the guilty verdict, but his fine was reduced to £75,000. Chelsea were also fined £300,000 and Mourinho was fined £200,000, reduced on appeal in August 2005 to £75,000.

Cole signed a one year extension to his contract on 18 July 2005, but a year later departed from the club in acrimonious circumstances. On 15 July 2006, Cole launched a verbal attack on Arsenal; in his autobiography, quoted in The Sun, Cole claimed that the Arsenal board had treated him as a "scapegoat" and that they had "fed him to the sharks" over the tapping up affair. Cole was deliberately left out of Arsenal's 2006-07 team photograph, refuelling press speculation that he would become a Chelsea player.

On 28 July, Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein had confirmed that Arsenal and Chelsea had been in "civil talks" about the player. Chelsea insisted they would not raise their £16million bid for the left back, but Arsenal held out for at a higher valuation of £25million. Negotiations continued throughout August and looked to be heading for deadlock, but eventually Cole signed for Chelsea on August 31 for a fee of £5million, with William Gallas also going the other way. The deal was closed after the transfer window had officially ended, and was not confirmed until an hour and a half after the deadline had passed.

Chelsea

Cole was given the number 3 shirt at Chelsea, and made his first appearance for the club as a substitute for Wayne Bridge in their 2-1 win over Charlton Athletic on 9 September. He also issued a public statement saying he forgave Arsenal for how he felt he was treated during his time there. However, he was not forgiven by Arsenal's fans, as they dubbed him "Cashley" and waved fake 20-pound notes with his face when Chelsea met Arsenal at Stamford Bridge on 10 December. Cole contributed to an own goal on December 26, 2006 in a match against newly promoted Reading. He tried to clear a low cross but it hit Michael Essien and Essien could do nothing but divert it into the net past Hilario. The match finished 2-2.

International career

Cole has played for England at youth and senior levels. He was capped for the England U-20 team at the 1999 FIFA World Youth Championship alongside Stuart Taylor, Peter Crouch, Andy Johnson and Matthew Etherington. However, the team finished bottom of their group, suffering three defeats without scoring any goals. He also made four appearances for England under-21s, scoring once.

Cole made his senior England début against Albania, on March 28, 2001. He played for England at the 2002 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2004, and was named as one of four England players in the all-star squad for the latter tournament. Cole was also an ever-present for England in the 2006 FIFA World Cup; in their second round match against Ecuador he made a crucial block, deflecting Carlos Tenorio's shot onto the crossbar. The match ended with England winning 1-0, but England were knocked out on penalties by Portugal in the quarter-finals. As of November 15, 2006, he has 57 caps for England, though he has never scored an international goal.

Personal life

In 2005 he became engaged to known racist Cheryl Tweedy, a singer from British chart-topping act Girls Aloud. He and Cheryl Tweedy were married at Wrotham Park, just north of Barnet, Hertfordshire on 15 July 2006.

Ashley and Cheryl Cole currently live in a mansion in Hampstead that used to belong to Patrick Vieira.

Cheryl and Ashley are happily married.

Cole has recently released an autobiography, My Defence, which has, to date, sold 4,000 copies. Based on the advance he received, it would require 75,000 copies to be sold before the publisher would break even.

At the same time Arsenal fans launched a campaign on the web to urge people to purchase a book by former Arsenal player Perry Groves, in an attempt to outsell Cole's. At the current time of writing Cole's book is number 2,650 in the Amazon.com sales charts while Groves' book is at 156. As of December 2006, Cole's book has sold only 4000 copies and has been subject to criticism from several Arsenal players, including Jens Lehmann.

Career stats

As of 21 November 2006
Club Season League Cup Europe Total
Apps Goals Assists Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals
Crystal Palace (loan) 1999-00 14 1 ? - - - - 14 1
Arsenal 1999–00 1 - - 1 - - - 2 -
2000–01 17 3 ? 7 - - - 24 3
2001–02 29 2 3 4 - 7 - 40 2
2002–03 31 1 5 4 - 9 - 44 1
2003–04 33 - 3 6 - 9 1 47 1
2004–05 35 2 1 4 - 8 - 47 2
2005–06 11 - - 1 - 3 - 15 -
Chelsea 2006–07 55 - - 1 - 4 - 20 -
Total 185 9 12 28 - 40 1 253 10

Trivia

References

  1. "Gunners fed me to sharks". The Sun. Retrieved 2006-11-15.
  2. "Abramovich ready to dictate terms of Cole's Chelsea move". The Guardian. 2006-08-11. Retrieved 2006-11-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. "Arsenal drive hard bargain with Chelsea over £30m Cole". The Guardian.
  4. "Gunners Battle for Cole Cash". The Mirror.
  5. "Transfer Deadline Day". BBC Sport.
  6. "Inflated & talentless (not you, Jordan, you're worth it)".
  7. "Let's make Perry Groves better than Ashley Cole". Arseblog.
  8. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=394966&cc=4716

External links

Chelsea F.C. – current squad
England squad – 2006 FIFA World Cup
England
England squad – 2002 FIFA World Cup
England

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