Ashley Cole biography: English Footballer

Ashley Cole biography

English football player

Soccer player

Place of birth Whitechapel, London, England
Height 1.72 m (5 ft 8 in)
Playing position Left back

Career

Club App (Gls)
Arsenal 156 (8)
Crystal Palace - loan- 14 (1)
Chelsea 23 (0)

National team
England U21 4 (1)
England B 1 (0)
England 58 (0)
Senior club appearances and goals
counted for the domestic league only and
correct as of 10 April 2007
National team caps and goals correct
as of 28 March 2007

Ashley Donovan Cole

born 20 December 1980, Whitechapel, London, England

English footballer of Barbadian descent. Cole plays left back for Chelsea and for the England national team, a position from which he often uses strong pace to try and support forward players.

Club career:

Arsenal
Cole started his career at local club Arsenal as a teenager. He signed as a professional on 25 February 2000. He had made a 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 in Crystal Palace, where he played 14 league matches and scored a goal, a long range half volley against Blackburn Rovers. After an injury to Silvinho, Arsenal's established Brazilian left back, in autumn 2000, Cole came on as his replacement, and remained first choice even after Silvinho'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
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 a 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. Barnett's license was suspended for 18 months and he was also fined £100,000.

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

On 28 July, Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein confirmed 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 through 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. 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.

On 31 January 2007, Cole suffered a serious knee injury in the 3-0 victory over Blackburn Rovers in a Premier League game at Stamford Bridge, although after a scan it was revealed to be not as bad as first thought, with Chelsea optimistic that he would return before the end of the 2006-07 season.

International career
Cole 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 the group, suffering three defeats without scoring 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 to 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 March 28, 2007, he has 58 caps for England, though he never scored an international goal.

Personal life
In 2005 he became engaged to Cheryl Tweedy, a member of the British chart act Girls Aloud. He and Tweedy were married at Wrotham Park, just north of Barnet, Hertfordshire on 15 July 2006. The two currently live in a mansion in Hampstead that used to belong to Patrick Vieira.

In 2006, Cole sued the News of the World and The Sun newspapers for libel after they printed reports of a Premiership footballer and a music DJ engaged in a "homosexual orgy", even though Cole was not named in any of the stories; however, a pixellated photograph of Cole with his likeness removed was printed. Both the News of the World and The Sun retracted the allegations after legal pressure and paid undisclosed damages to Cole.

Cole has recently released an autobiography, My Defence, which sold only 4,000 copies in the first six weeks of release. Cole's book was subject to criticism from his former team mate Jens Lehmann. At the same time, Arsenal fans launched a campaign on the world wide web encouraging people to purchase a book by former Arsenal player Perry Groves, in an attempt to outsell Cole's.

Misspell

Coala Coal Caol

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