Why Ashley Cole will never be popular

Ashley Cole is one of the best left backs in the world. On his day, he might even have a justifiable claim to be the very best. He has made eighty-seven appearances for England and rarely let them down. During the past horrible twelve months for England, Cole was named their best player by the fans.

Winning

He has played his entire twelve year senior career at the very highest level with Arsenal and Chelsea, winning three Premier League titles, six FA Cups and a League Cup. He has been named in the Professional Footballers association team of the year three times and the UEFA team of the year twice.

All in all, Ashley Cole has had a glittering career and should be regarded as one of the best. Why is it then that he is a difficult person to like and that fans around the country can’t stand him?

Reasons

There are several reasons. The first one revolves around the way he left Arsenal. After saying that he would never play for anyone else he decided to leave when he was offered the measly sum of £55,000 per week when he felt he was worth £60,000. It is hard to put into words just how offensive that is to the ordinary man in the street. He earned the nickname ‘Cashley’ Cole and opposing fans would often wave money in the air at him.

Cole then wrote an autobiography entitled, ‘My defence’. It sold badly to start with. I made the mistake of reading it and if Cole thought it would show him in a good light he was seriously mistaken. He made himself look like a disloyal money grabber.

Sweetheart

Then, of course, there are the affairs he had whilst married to the nation’s sweetheart, Girls Aloud and X-Factor star Cheryl. They are now divorced and Ashley came out of the resulting publicity with little or no credit.

There are also brushes with the police whereby he has been fined for swearing at a policeman and for driving at reckless and dangerous speeds.

Shot

Now the story has emerged that Cole accidentally shot a twenty-one year old student on work experience with a .22 calibre air rifle, at Chelsea’s Cobham training round. Tom Cowan, a sports science student, did not require hospital treatment but was apparently shot from a distance of only five feet.

It seems that Cole didn’t know the gun was loaded. That’s alright then!

Cole has apologised to the student and to Chelsea and manager Carlo Ancelotti says that the matter has been dealt with and is now closed. He says that Cole is great player and a great man. He says he is a fine professional and he has apologised so there is nothing else that can be done.

Gun

Ancelotti does also point out that Cole shouldn’t have had the gun at the training ground. I think we had probably all worked that one out!

I don’t know of another job in the world whereby you could unlawfully take an air rifle onto the premises and then accidentally shoot someone with it and get away with an apology.

Image

It doesn’t matter how great a player Ashley Cole is, he will never be popular. For all I know, he might be a really nice bloke in private, but his public image is about as bad as it could be.