Ashley Cole scores another ‘own goal’

Ashley Cole is a fine footballer. At his best, he is right up there with Roberto Carlos and Paulo Maldini as one of the finest left backs I have ever seen.

Despite that fact and the fact that he has played nearly seventy times for his country and rarely let them down, he continues to be one of the least liked footballers of his generation.

Smashing

I have never met Ashley Cole and for all I know he might well be a really smashing bloke. Against my better judgement and for no real reason that I can put my finger on, I don’t like him. I never have.

I wondered if it was a simple case of jealousy. Good looking, great footballer, rich and married to the gorgeous Cheryl from Girls Aloud. I have to accept that those things may well play a part in my irrational dislike of a man I have never met!

Angry

To try to cure myself this of this hatred I decided to read Ashley’s autobiography called, ‘My defence’. I read the book from cover to cover and I’m afraid that my opinion of the man hardly changed. He came across in the book in exactly the same way he is portrayed in the newspapers and by angry and bitter Arsenal fans.

The book did little to dispel the rumours around his alleged illicit meeting with Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho whilst he was still at Arsenal and the general way he comes across in the book is not, to me, terribly likeable.

Inappropriate

In fact, the title of the book is very inappropriate because it does very little to defend him against the type of slurs to which he has been subjected.

The nickname, ‘Cashley’ Cole was given to him because of the fact that his move to Chelsea appeared to be motivated purely by money. In his book he attacks Arsenal because they only offered him a 100% pay-rise to about £55000 per week when he makes a case to say that surely it was obvious that he was worth £60000. He was dismayed that Arsenal were prepared to let him go over just £5000 per week.

He seemed to be totally incapable of understanding how this makes him look.

Failed

What with the money stories and the unfounded stories about his sexuality and the more founded stories of his infidelity, Cole has rarely been away from damaging headlines off the pitch. As I say, his attempt to defend his behaviour and actions in his book, for me, failed miserably.

Still I think that I may have misjudged the man and he might actually be a really good bloke. After all, to judge someone you have never met is a silly thing to do.

Arrested

Reading the papers yesterday I came across another story about good old Ashley. Whilst his wife is currently climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa for the charity Comic Relief, Ashley has been out to a nightclub in London and got himself arrested for being drunk and disorderly.

Cole was held at Brompton Road Police Station in South Kensington after allegedly repeatedly swearing at two police officers despite being warned that his behaviour would lead to arrest. The incident happened at about 2-15 in the morning and Cole was released from custody having been given an eighty pound fixed-penalty fine. The Police will not now take any further action.

Behave

This would appear to be another sorry episode in the twenty-eight year old footballer’s life. Any man of twenty-eight should know how to behave better than that and the onus on someone in the public eye, like Cole, is even greater. Many of us have had too much to drink and become a little loud and unpleasant, but when a police officer tells you to shut-up, even if you are not a multi-millionaire footballer, you tend to shut-up.

It should be said that earlier in the evening Ashley Cole had been with other members of the Chelsea squad at a charity event. I’m sure he does a lot of work for charity and, of course, the nice things he says and does are far less likely to make it into the newspapers than the more salacious things.

Disciplinarian

Having said that, there are too many negative stories for all of it to be wrong. It seems that Ashley Cole has some sort of self destruct button and if Guus Hiddink and Fabio Capello are the disciplinarian type of managers that they are portrayed to be, then he better start to eliminate the less pleasant side of his character as soon as possible.