Totally Extra: Andy Cole - the Premier League's most underrated goalscorer?

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1:57The Athletic FC.

2:05Totally Extra. Today, it's a coal-powered edition as we salute one of the Premier League's greatest and perhaps most underappreciated goal scorers. Record-breaking, record-making Andrew Cole. He wasn't cuddly and he couldn't bear Teddy, but there's lots of love for the hero of two Uniteds in this Totally Extra.

2:40It's Thursday, the 3rd of September, with the Totally Extra for You. We have in the studio Tom Williams. Hello, James. Hi, Tom. On the big screen, Daniel Storey. Good afternoon, James. Good afternoon. Yeah, very well, thank you. Daniel actually sharing his screen space with today Andy Midden. Andy who's joining us from Barcelona. How are you doing? Lovely to have you on Andy. Oops sorry about that. I've just spent seven days on the road with Mr Cole so I've uh he's very fresh in my memory. You've just spent seven days on the road with Andy Cole in a kind of weird man you trip mash-up thing. we traveled around island together we started in cork i met him at cork airport and then we drove north to dublin to newry to belfast to derry so him and i spent a lot of time together we even went to a rave together wow was this a professional trip or do you and andy just go another day from time to time um it was a professional trip although he has been to stay with my family in the past and this was someone I didn't really have a relationship with when he played for Man United I thought he was hard work and he has since said to me that you know I just didn't really like journalists I didn't think you knew what you're on about and even last week was taking me to task saying how are you qualified to give me a rating when you've got no comprehension of what the manager has instructed me to go and do on the pitch and I'm like okay is it this turn off here for Belfast mate or is it the next one and uh he's a good guy I like him I when he stopped playing I did a four-hour interview with him and my perception of him completely changed when he started telling me about his dad being a minor in Nottinghamshire Coalfields his background and I found that he's a he's a private and quite shy person but once he trusts you then he's a real person of integrity my mother and my wife both adore him my children adore him and I thought we'll travel around Ireland together he was totally up for that and I feel quite protective over him because he gets recognized everywhere and I tried to take him in some pub in pubs in Dublin and he just got smothered a couple of Fridays ago when we finished our do the promoter said we've got a rave on do you want to come in Belfast and I went yeah I'll try it for an hour and Andy Cole said no I'm gonna go back to the hotel so I went to this rave five or six thousand people there and the average age was 18 which is a little below my age and I sent Andy some um some audio and video of of this rave going on and uh he put it out on his own Instagram implying that he was there so this might be quite complimentary when we speak about him today but you know I thought that was quite disingenuous of him to be doing that because his millions of followers thought that he was an ultra-rule cool raver right still very much in dance culture i'm still very much in center forward mode didn't get a touch on the evening but he's claiming it all the same remarkable i also take from that is that nominative determinism his dad was a miner named cole yeah and when you're a miner in the 70s and 80s in nottinghamshire when the miner strikes going on and when you've suffered the racism which his family suffered you know I said to him did you ever go and watch Forest or North County and he said no it just wasn't the thing for a kid off my estate to do but his dad was quite an inspirational figure he didn't like football he only watched him three times in his entire career he wasn't there at camp now he was a cricket man mildly disappointed that Andy didn't become a cricketer I think he's got six sisters so he said you'd think that had helped me understand the female psyche it hasn't and he said that his father shouldered a lot of the abuse and didn't bring it home to the family but he also said to him um when you're down the mine we're all black son we're all the same down there and then at his father's funeral one of his dad's friends came up to him and said you know your dad was really proud of you and that's not something that his dad had ever said to him and that really meant a lot to him because he was a top top footballer but the more I get to know him I know him as a top human being.

7:06Excellent Andy. Dads eh and sons for that matter. Yeah everyone's got a lot of work to do. Crikey well looking forward to hearing more about your trip around Ireland. Tom your recollections of Andy Cole at Man United and also before that because the other United was where he really came up with perhaps his greatest season ever the first player ever to become top goal scorer and top assister in a single Premier League season or a single first division season I think that's right yeah I mean arguably the first great centre forward of the Premier League era in many ways or certainly one of them and that fantastic partnership that he formed with Peter Beardsley and they'd not played together until that season I think I'm right in saying and just formed the most tremendous partnership and then you know goes on to Manchester United, record transfer fee, huge expectations, takes a bit of time to find his feet.

7:58And when I think about Andy Cole, and you touched on this in the intro, James, it's hard to escape the feeling sometimes that he's been somehow slightly airbrushed from Premier League history. It's not a name that comes up all that often. You look at the scoring charts and he's right up there, fifth highest scorer in the Premier League era. You take penalties out of the equation and he's second highest scorer. And like some of the goals he scored, like he scored some incredible goals. Like there were a couple of chips that come to mind, one against Everton, one against Coventry. There was an overhead bicycle kick from the edge of the penalty area against Leicester City in 1999.

8:35These deserve to be canonical Premier League goals and you just don't ever see them. And I'm not entirely sure why that is, but it kind of feels like he deserves a bit more credit than he gets. Well, you can maybe explore that a bit. Certainly he did have a reputation as not being the easiest person to get along with, which is why it's also curious how he instinctively, it seems, formed these amazing partnerships with Peter Beardsley, later on with Dwight York, Andy Mitten, of course, more recently. Daniel, what do you think about when you think about Andy Cole? Yeah, I mean, to me, I was seven years old at the start of 93-94 and my own team weren't in the Premier League.

9:15So that was the first season I really gorged on the Premier League as sort of outside of the prism of Nottingham Forest, as it was at the time. And it just completely blew me away. I think one of the reasons, and there are many, I think one of the reasons the reputation slightly suffers is that there was quite a, probably unfair, but also understandable suspicion that he never quite fully lived up to that 93-94 season. He became, to my mind, a goal scorer after then, whereas in 93-94, he was a fantasy player. He was doing everything. He was a creator. He was running in behind. He was winning headers.

9:53He almost looked like that Shiro prototype of Blackburn, where he was just scoring every single type of goal, but was adding creativity in a way that we hadn't really seen before and didn't really see in the same way from him again. I think the other reason and this is absolutely not his fault whatsoever but I think by 1996 I think the influx of foreign attacking players meant that everybody of that ilk was slightly overlooked, they almost became one mash of English strikers when you had the rise of Bergkamp obviously you had Cantona at United with him you then had Hasselbank and Henri was there by 1999 and It maybe just felt like Cole got slightly caught between two areas in terms of reputation, maybe.

10:42With all of that, as Tom points out, second highest scorer if you take penalties out of it. A greater goal per game ratio if you take penalties out of it than Alan Shearer. 100 % one of the greats, certainly, of the 90s. His partnership with Dwight York, one of the most memorable partnerships in English football history. Curiously, they only combined for nine goals in the Premier League. I mean, yeah, that feels like a very Duncan Alexander code. That's just the kind of like childhood memory shattering stat that he drops in podcasts like this. I thought we might have been saving that today. Well, no, but we have a quiz question for you.

11:20Given that the most prolific partnership in Premier League history is clearly not Andy Cole and Dwight York, Can you guess who were the most prolific in terms of assists for each other for goals in Premier League history? I've got the top five here. I tell you what, at the end of the show, we'll see how many you can name. Before that, before we hear any more about Andy Cole, let's have a quick rummage in the almanac.

11:55It's the first week in September. what has this week in football history brought us down the years? Well, on the 5th of September 1988, who got its first England call-up against Denmark? Paul Gascoigne. We're going to see Paul Gascoigne.

12:15Looks as though Peter Beardsley is going off to make way for Gascoigne to win his first full cap.

12:25Big moment for him, 21 years old. Paul Gascoigne. A year and a day later, September 6th 1989, Terry Butcher bleeding for England after that clash of heads with Swedish striker Johnny Ekstrom in a FIFA World Cup qualifier. The image of the week was Terry Butcher, England's bloodstained captain in Stockholm. With Peter Shilton no less staunch behind him, Butcher led England to a vital draw. 1st of September 2008, Sheikh Mansour took over Man City and on that same day pipped Chelsea to Robinho out of Real Madrid for what was then a British record transfer fee. £32 million. 2nd of September 2013, Arsenal signed Mesut Ozil.

13:18Ladies and gentlemen, Arsenal fans everywhere, it appears Arsenal have got their man. Mesut Ozil has just been speaking moments ago and he's talking about the thrill, the joy he feels in joining Arsenal tonight. It was a bit of a shock because Arsene Wenger didn't do that kind of thing. His previous record was 17 million for Jose Antonio Reyes, but 42 million was found for the, inverted commas, enigmatic, closed inverted commas, Mr. Ozil. Yeah, that felt like the peak of deadline day excitement. Obviously, we've had a pretty mad transfer deadline day this summer, but around that time, that was real Sky Sports News reporters surrounded by hordes of youths in a car park.

14:04It has taken some time. And what are we? We are just over half an hour from the window closing. And Arsenal have pulled off the signing of Mesut Ozil. A five-year contract was put on the table to him. He has signed that. Mesut Ozil is now going to be playing in the Premier League for Arsenal.

14:26I worry about that cameraman. I worry about him. Do they not have that anymore? No, they stopped doing it shortly after that because they were getting harangued so much and they started standing on the pitch. Yeah. So we lost those heartwarming scenes. Thank goodness for that. Excellent. All right. So that was a little taste of one or two things that have happened in history. But let's delve a little bit deeper back into the 90s and talk Andy Cole. Good ball for Beardsley. Beardsley trying to thread her way through. And there's a lot of room out here for Sellers and Cole.

15:08A£7 million British record, Andy Cole in a red shirt. Wow. A big shot. I don't think it's a shot for you boys as well, because no one thought that Kevin Keaton was telling him. It's kicks to Cole! Well, Newcastle know all about him, and they're on the receiving end. Alec Ferguson is thrilled. Andy Cole is thrilled. Andy Cole, can he get it out of the walk-up? Cole, in three minutes, has it been all run by Alec Cragleton? It's the goal to complete the championship for Manchester United. All right, so Andy Mitten, what kind of player was Andy Cole? Goal scorer. He was brought for his goals. and yet when he arrived at Manchester United, Brian Kidd, the assistant manager, said, don't be thinking that scoring 40 goals will be enough here, son.

16:06And he's like, what? And he said, this is about a team. We know what you did at Newcastle United and he'd been a big success at Bristol City as well where he was inspired by a Pole called Jackie Jackanowski and he adored this Polish guy and he didn't quite follow him out at night time because he said that Jackie liked to have a drink on a Wednesday and a Thursday and one on a Friday as well. But he thought he was a wonderful player. And then he was doing his laundry one day in Bristol when he got a post-it note put on his car by Bristol City's manager, Russell Osmond, because mobile phones hadn't become a thing.

16:45He said, call me straight away. So he'd located his car, but not coal. And he called him and he said, Newcastle United want to sign you. and he rang Kevin Keegan and Kevin Keegan said, hello Adrian. He said, what? He said, my name's Andy. He said, oh, sorry Andy. So he got his name wrong and this was Newcastle United's most expensive ever signing. Can you come up? He said, no, I'm finishing my laundry. So he stayed in Bristol, did his laundry and he went up to Newcastle the next day. Signed, was a big success. He actually lived in a working class pit village called Crook, which I found quite endearing but he got smothered by the locals they'd come round and say we bake you some cakes because you've just scored two goals and do you need any sugar and an hour later the door would go again and it would be like we bake you some bread and it was lovely but he was in a little bit of a goldfish bowl there but he was a proper goal scorer he learned from Peter Beardsley and then that's why Manchester United looked at him it was his goals and United also looked at Stan Collymore and of course Eric Cantona was about to find himself in some disrepute.

17:54But it was a team which was, they'd won the double, but Fergie just really liked the number of goals he scored and the variety of goals that he scored as well. Right. The move to Newcastle, I did not know that Russell Osmond had precipitated that by leaving a post-it on his vehicle. That does seem an extraordinary way. The trouble didn't blow off. Can you imagine? Yeah. What if it rained? Yeah. Yeah. Well, sliding doors on that. He arrived at Newcastle United in February 1993. They broke their club transfer record to sign him, a princely 1.75 million. They were down in the first division, the second tier at that time.

18:37He scored then 12 goals in as many league matches to help them win the title and earn promotion to the Premier League. And that first full season with Peter Bredsley arriving, Daniel, it was just ridiculous numbers. Yeah, outrageous. I mean, it was a team under Keegan that was, you know, it was the kind of mullet team, you know, business at the back party at the front. It was absolutely set out to entertain. He almost gave Cole and Beardsley both three roles in effect and said, look, you two workers are two. Go wherever you want. I trust you implicitly to work together. And that's exactly what happened.

19:20It proved a masterstroke from Keegan to give that much freedom to his attackers. Keegan was a striker who always said he had to work incredibly hard just to squeeze everything out of himself. and he basically believed that the natural talent that Beardsley and Cole had was above his own. And he said, look, just go out and do it. And they did so and were phenomenally attacking, phenomenally entertaining. Probably, I'm slightly disrespecting my own club here, but probably the greatest promoted team in Premier League history in terms of how they attacked the league and surprised the league at a time when, yes, there probably wasn't as much scouting of the First Division by opposition managers.

19:58But Newcastle just, wow, just blew teams away. and it was because of that relationship between Beardsley and Cole. Grace well, first time for Cole! Oh, that was beautifully done! Peter Beardsley's hat-trick! They finished third that season, Newcastle, in their first season, back up top. Beardsley and Cole had 55 league goals between them. Cole contributing 34 goals, but also 13 or 14 assists. I've seen both numbers listed. Numbers do get a bit shadowy when you go back into the last millennia. But he was the first player to top both the league's goal scoring and assist shots in the same season.

20:40I think only four players, including him, have done it since. Have ever done it, basically. 41 total goals in all competitions, though, which was the number that Brian Kidd was saying didn't count for anything now that he was at Old Trafford. so very kind of like that era Manchester United sort of you might have scored 119 goals we want none of that here son we're winners throw your medals in the bin yeah throw your goals get your goals get the ball out of the net 41 times and throw the ball in the in the bin 41 times I mean not quite as Brian Clough coded as that but an amusing an amusing welcome now as Andy was referencing a man united had a look at that and liked what they saw 68 goals in 84 appearances for newcastle andy call had managed and on the 10th of january 1995 newcastle decided to sell him why why was it daniel that kevin keegan found himself on the steps of saint james is explaining to the heartbroken Geordies why their goal hero was on his way.

21:49You chant, me to go. You know I'm a guy. But I understand your problems. Leave it with us. We've done alright so far. He's been a great player. But please don't think the thing you said there about him playing a getaway and that, that is scandalous because honestly that lad has given everything. He's tried harder the last probably six or eight weeks than he has all the time he's been here. I think Cole, Andy will know the intricacies of Cole's mindset at this point, but I think it's fairly clear that he wanted the move. Everything had happened incredibly quickly for him, from the start at Arsenal to Bristol City with nobody expecting much to basically hitting the ground running and never stopping scoring at that point.

22:33And I suspect the move to Manchester United, who at that point were on their way to becoming the unstoppable force of English football, having just completed a double, felt like the natural step for every, you know, for the next big thing of England centre forwarding. And when that sort of offer comes, Manchester United were very, very hard to turn down for a series of players at that point. It did break Newcastle's hearts. Obviously, kind of all's well that ends well in terms of, you know, their eventual replacement being Shearer from Blackburn. but it was a it was a bold move from Newcastle at the time because they were it was basically the first sort of bubble pricked of that freewheeling we're going to make Newcastle sing again as a football team era it had just been rise rise rise under Keegan they made a not quite a title bid but certainly came close and the thought was is where did Newcastle go from here it wasn't who's going to take Newcastle's best players.

23:36And Cole was the superstar of the time and Manchester United very much like signing very good players, but they also really like making a statement of signing the player at the time. I always remember there was a Newcastle fan who had got an Andy Cole tattoo, I think possibly on his calf, the week that he went to Manchester United and he was in the paper. And it's not like it is today where people get banter tattoos knowing that they might end up looking silly. this guy was gutted and really angry. It was like, look what I've put on my leg. What am I going to do with this kind of thing? But with a Geordie accent.

24:11But with a Geordie accent. Recollections of the moment. And as I say, Keegan coming out to talk to the supporters. Huge moment. It was a Newcastle supporter from back in the day saying that he'd come back from school because in those days there was no internet or anything. He'd come back from school and his mum and dad had sat him down to tell him the news as if a relative had died, Daniel. I should also say, I mean, this is not a, this is an Andy Cole podcast, not a Kevin Keegan podcast, but that was Keegan's decision to go out and face the music as the manager. It wasn't him who wanted to sell Andy Cole, it was the club's decision.

24:47And yet it was him who said, I will go out. I am the voice that people listen to. I am the public face of this club. I should be the one to take the flack, which kind of says absolutely everything you need to know about Kevin Keegan. Well, he did, or the club did receive a record fee in return. It was a new British transfer highest ever figure. Seven million in total, six million cash, plus the one million pound rated Keith Gillespie going the other way. Andy, has Andrew talked to you about what was going on for him at the time? There's talk of a rift or an altercation between him and Keegan, for example.

25:22A couple of things were going on. You had Paul in saying to him, come to Man United, and Andy Cole not taking it very seriously. And then after one game, Andy wasn't feeling great and Kevin Keegan said, if you don't like it, go home. So he did. He went back to London and Kevin didn't like that. So the relationship broke down. Now this is someone who, he has a very high opinion of. So when we were on the road recently, I said it's Kevin's funeral tomorrow and he just had a moment to himself. I think there's a lot of warmth towards Kevin as a manager, and I know that they completely made up years after.

26:01But the relationship did go, and then Sir Alex Ferguson heard about this argument. I said, how did he hear? And he said he thinks that Joe Royal told him, another manager. How on earth did Joe Royal found out about this? And he didn't know. So the deal was done quite quickly. And he moved to Manchester and he was going to live in a hotel. But his agent said, no, you can stay in the spare room, no problem. And he found out years later that his agent, who just made a cut on this huge deal, actually charged him to stay in the spare room, which disappointed him a lot. And then he joined Man United the first January there.

26:42They went on a mid-season break to Spain. They were drinking heavily and he couldn't believe the team he joined. he's seen all these figures who were world famous footballers completely plastered and then at the end of the first month he was there Eric Cantona had that slight altercation at Sellers Park where he had a disagreement with a fan and went to make his feelings quite clear about that and again Cole's like what on earth have I joined here and then with Cantona's absence the onus was on Cole to score the goals and he actually had a difficult first few months because it took time to settle.

27:17There was a lot of pressure there and his partner was pregnant at the same time. So he was trying to settle into a new city, see his partner who was in a different city. It was a really difficult time for him and he was getting a lot of abuse in the media. He never really forgot that. He never forgot the names of the people who were writing the abuse towards him, the criticism which he felt was unfair. Yeah, it was an interesting time for him to be joining Manchester United. He'd started well halfway through 94 95 season coming in scoring 12 goals in 18 premier league matches however i think what stayed in most united supporters at manchester united supporters minds was more the way that season ended with united missing out on the title and cole very much the scapegoat for chances that he didn't convert in that last game against west ham It was one of the most traumatic memories of that decade for United fans, that final day of the season away at Upton Park in the old black Umbro kit.

28:21And coming up against an inspired Ludek McClosko in a West Ham goal, United drew 1-1 with Blackburn losing away at Liverpool. Had they won the game, they would have won the league. And they completely dominated West Ham. Cole came as close as anyone. He had a fantastic shot that hit the post. he drew a succession of saves out of McClosco but they just couldn't get you know couldn't get the ball in the net and I think he ended up kind of you know it was because he was the player who was thwarted more than any other he almost came to symbolise that disappointment and the referee blows his whistle no title this year for Manchester United or Alex Ferguson but they came as close as you ever can come to winning in the final minutes here.

29:09And it's desperate for the players who've given it absolutely everything on this run-in. Then a week later in the FA Cup final, he's cup-tied. United lose to Everton, finish the season empty-handed for the first time in a few years. And so for all the promise of, or all the kind of expectation generated by some of the performances he'd produced and some of the goals he'd scored, he ends up being one of the symbols of this enormously disappointing campaign. Two and a half years it took before he really, I think, began to live up to the expectations. The price tag, no doubt, was a factor in that and something, I think, Andy, that weighed heavily on him.

29:53There was also the injuries. He had rotten luck, catching pneumonia in the summer of, what was that, 95? No, 96. And then getting his leg broken in two places in a reserve game at Anfield. There was also perhaps, and you'll know better than the rest of us perhaps, strained relationships within the team. I don't know how well he got on with Eric Cantona, for example, and Tedding Sheringham then became something of an issue too. In that period, and also I'd throw in the fact that he hadn't, he'd very much not made friends with the press. And that can be a factor in how you're perceived by members of the public.

30:32Like, was there a time in that kind of two and a half, two and a half year spell? Was there a time when he came close to being sold, do you think? There was talk of it and nothing more than that. I think Fergie knew that he had a quality player, but he was also looking at several other players throughout Andy Cole's entire time at Manchester United. I remember being at a preseason in Milan and word went around that Patrick Cliver had absolutely signed for Manchester United. And again, Cole's future was uncertain. And I think he was just used to this constant talk around Manchester United. And he had his own sort of coping mechanisms.

31:13He had the faith of Ferguson, of his teammates. They really liked him as a person. You know, as soon as he arrived there, the lads were taking him out. They took him to Liverpool, bizarrely, to a club called Cream. as soon as he joined Man United with a couple of bodyguards. And he said it was one of the best nights of his life. But he missed the birth of his son to play for Man United. And he regrets that. And there was pressure put on him. It was like, OK, I know you're going to become a dad, but what about the game against Southampton at the weekend? And he was just so focused in paying back that transfer fee that he played in the game.

31:52But he did have some injuries. That West Ham game, it was unfortunate. but West Ham were fantastic. Blackburn Rovers did deserve to win the league that year as well. Everyone talks about Man United not winning it. That was a brilliant effort from Blackburn Rovers. So when you play centre-forward for a huge club like Man United, you're going to be ripped apart all the time unless you're scoring lots and lots of goals. Yet even when he was scoring lots of goals, he was still getting abuse, which I think was a bit unfair. Absolutely. How did that impact him? He seemed quite a sensitive fellow. I just think he wasn't the guy who'd go through mix zones and speak and handshake his favourite journalist.

32:33I just don't think he had that type of relationship. He was very much, you're with me or you're against me. And maybe you used that to motivate him. And his relationship with some of his teammates, which you spoke about, it wasn't always fantastic. But he was his own man and he was a consistent man. And with Teddy Sheringham. so Teddy Sheringham yeah I think Daniel you were you waving a finger on this I was I was just going to say he was also playing at a time in the 90s when neither the media nor the public particularly had any sympathy or any thought about what footballers were thinking or what was happening in their personal lives or where their heads were at um you know very famously there are players in that era Tony Adams is one that immediately jumps to mind but Paul McGuire as well who found things incredibly hard and had no real coping mechanisms and these were seen as defensive leaders Cole was never really given anything other than criticism for basically five years for not quite being the player that people wanted him to be or maybe thought he could be after 93 94 and yet we're talking about a guy who scored more non-penalty goals than anyone but Alan Shearer so that presents that as a as a kind of you know a success of mentality to get through that to deal with all those kind of slings and arrows that he was getting and to not be like i'm not going to play the game here i'm not going to do what you want me to do i'm just going to kind of do it my way and at the end of it he sounds like from what you say and he sounds like he's kind of made peace with that as well which is the best thing of all incredibly single-minded sharing him the the story which I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with, of how he'd taken offence at the fact that Terry Sheringham hadn't shaken his hand when Andy Cole came on for his first England appearance.

34:29Sheringham was exiting. Andy put out his hand and Sheringham walked straight past down the tunnel. He kind of brushes past. I mean, he doesn't shake his hand properly. He doesn't shake his hand. Brushes past. The kind of thing, I mean, I don't think anyone watching would have thought, oh, that's going to hear about this again. Andy Cole has been on the record. saying that what he absolutely felt was everyone watching will have seen me being completely ghosted by an England teammate. And I will never forgive him for that, nor will I ever speak to him again. To the extent that if Sheringham wanted to get a message, even on the field, to Andy Cole, he had to speak to Dwight York, say, can you get Andy to do whatever?

35:09Is that right, Andy? yeah I think their work colleagues who didn't get on but they both acknowledged that they were both exceptional footballers and he will speak on the record as will Teddy about how they were cracking players brilliant players top top level they will infuse about each other's goals they just don't want to be amazed with each other they're just cut from a completely different cloth, their backgrounds are completely different, that doesn't mean that they shouldn't get on, opposites can attract, but those two didn't attract. I've spoken to each of them about each other, and that is their position, and part of that is sadness, but they're also incredibly consistent about their viewpoint.

35:56You know, you'll hear him going, oh Teddy, fantastic, and when Teddy scored that goal in camp now, the equaliser. He said he was one of the players who was celebrating most, despite having been substituted. So there's this weird dynamic. I think when you're a kid, you think that everyone in your favourite football team are all best mates. And then as you grow up, you realise that they're just work colleagues and that actually quite a lot of them don't like each other for whatever reason. It did work to an extent on the pitch, even if it didn't work on a personal level. What's curious is that when things really began to turn around at Man United for Andy Cole, was with the arrival of another player who seemed utterly cut from a different cloth, Dwight York.

36:37And we'll get on to him and his partnership with Andy Cole next.

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39:11This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pearce, Olly Kay and the very best football writers around. So Dwight York transfers to Manchester United for a£12.6 million fee at the start of the 1998-99 season, which, as history shows, was quite a big one for Manchester United. Cole says, when we started playing together with Dwight York, it was like meeting a special woman and falling in love. Everything felt right. We never had a crossword. And yet these two men were as different as you could hope to find, Daniel.

39:58Yeah, they were. But you've got to remember what Dwight Eor almost accidentally offered Cole. He first offered him a true goal scorer next to him, not a creative influence, but another goal scorer. So Cole, one of the oddities of Cole's career is that he was never the team's top goal scorer in a title winning season. So he scored six in 96, 97. He then scored 17 and 19 in 98, 99 and 99, 2000. But York is there scoring just one more as him. And I think Andy will back this up. Cole didn't mind that because he had someone to share that responsibility. He also had in York, and I think this is absolutely crucial for Cole's kind of renaissance at United.

40:40He had a guy who is, it's probably impossible to find a more relaxed, laid back person than Dwight York. so Cole's there next to someone and he's had Eric who is let's say a fairly intense character he's then got this guy who's scoring goals for fun who doesn't seem to be taking it he doesn't seem to be affected by all these pressures that Cole knows he's had in his Manchester United life and and this is just a theory and it sounds a little bit twee but I think probably Cole thought you know what he seems to be getting it and he doesn't seem to be letting it bother him maybe if I you know maybe I stick around with him maybe this week we're a partnership maybe that some of that rubs off on me and I become this you know slightly less um you know all-encompassing overthinking footballer I can just score goals and that that is what he did for those two league seasons Andy that partnership didn't come about naturally though did it no Virgie stumbled on it at a game of Southampton away it was like five or six weeks into the treble season and he just saw something that thought they've really clicked.

42:09Dwight and Andy became very good friends off the field, which transmitted itself onto the field and became an almost telepathic understanding between the two of them. Certainly they worked at training and a lot of things. People assume that they were the same, they were best mates because Dwight was from Tobago and Andy's family were from Jamaica but they are totally different as people but they were good mates. Andy would call Dwight Peter Pan but Andy's home life was completely different. He was, Devante was around, so he had a young son, whereas Dwight was going out. Dwight was extremely generous with his affections.

42:50I think it's fair to say that publicly. Beautifully put. They would combine on a football pitch to the level that Alex Ferguson dreamed of having a team good enough to go to Barcelona away and attacking them. That was his dream. and for the first time in his life in the autumn of 98 he felt that he had a team capable of doing that now him and Cole the night before the game they were at each other you're not focused you're not this you're not that and then I sat next to Hugh McIlvenny the great journalist during that game and he didn't know who I was I was a young lad but I was slightly in awe of him and I loved watching McIlvenny purring with delight just saying brilliant brilliant this is brilliant as Dwight York and Andy Cole just cut through, I'm not going to say this great, great Barca team because there have been better Barcelona teams, but a top Barcelona team in camp now.

43:43And as a fan, you're watching it thinking, this is fantastic because Manchester United had not won a European Cup since 1968. They kept coming closer and closer. They were finishing in the quarters and semis. And then suddenly you're thinking, these lads might be good enough to go all the way here. and partly because of them two, backed up by Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. And you can speak to any of them about each other. They're all absolutely glowing, the four of them. They all scored a lot of goals. But I think the first choice, with respect to the others, was Andy and Dwight. It was Solskjaer and Sheringham who are part of the legendary night then in the final.

44:25But along the way, as Andy mentions, there was that glorious 3-3 draw in the group stage against Barcelona with possibly the most kind of emblematic goal in terms of the way those two combined, the level of understanding that they had, them just zipping the ball between themselves back and forth. It's difficult to think of a goal that demonstrates the strength of understanding in a strike partnership better than that one. United have the ball on the right wing. Roy Keane plays a square pass in towards Dwight York's feet. They're, you know, kind of about 25, 30 yards from goal here. York steps over the ball, lets it run through to Cole.

45:04Cole plays it first time down the inside right channel to York, who immediately returns it back to him. And Cole's basically all on his own on the penalty spot, sticks at bottom left. I remember just watching it and the thrill of these two players being one or two or three passes ahead of every other player on the pitch was tremendous. All well led by York, said by Cole. Back to Andy Cole from Dwight York. Fantastic goal for Manchester United. Eight minutes to the second half gone. Andy Cole, the scorer. The combination between Cole and York was out of this world. Marvellous goal. And then they hair off in celebration.

45:43There was a Ford Focus advert by the side of the pitch. And Andy Cole runs over and kind of points at the focus bit with this massive grin on his face. And Dwight York runs over after him. And he's got a massive grin on his face. They're not only playing, you know, football from the gods, but they're having a laugh and a joke at the same time. And the perfect demonstration of the understanding that existed between the two of them on the football pitch. But when you take in the celebration as well, a demonstration of the extent to which Dwight York enabled Andy Cole to kind of play with a bit less weight on his shoulders.

46:17Absolutely. 53 goals the pair of them got in the course of 98, 99. season. We're talking about that as perhaps the most emblematic goal. The game that stands out from that campaign beyond the final prior to the final is the performance in Turin from two goals down to 3-2 winners against one of the all-time great Juventus sides and once again you saw Cole and York coming together in spectacular fashion in this one. The promised land is inside again the 29th of May 1968 68. The last final. York, he skipped through. It's Dwight York. He's brought down by Perunce. Kohl will finish it off. Full speed ahead, Barcelona.

47:06Manchester United are in sight of the European Cup final again.

47:14Andy Kohl has surely made that a certainty now. It's the best game that I've ever seen as a Manchester United fan. and I sat in the main stand surrounded by all these Juventus fans, and I can't understand Italian, but when their team were 2-0 up, having been easily the better team in the first leg at Old Trafford, I understood as they looked at me, they were saying, look, we know you support quite a good team, but we're Juventus, and we're really sorry, and they were very kind with me, because they were 2-0 up after 11 minutes for Inzaghi. And then Roy Keane had what I think was his best ever game for Manchester United.

47:54Interestingly, Keane and Cole got on really well. Keane used to moan at York all the time, never ever moaned at Cole. They completely got on with each other and still do. And then Cole got the goal after 83 minutes, which meant the scoreline was Juventus 2, Manchester United 3. Full steam ahead, Barcelona. Coley would always say that some of those Juventus players were the best that he ever came up against, some of the toughest players he ever came up against. But that was a game for the ages. And he uses a term when he describes that, we pulverise them. And Juventus were the best team in the world by most measurements at that time.

48:41And Manchester United run away to a first European Cup final. since 1968 and Andy Cole was a key key part of that finally did it all come together Daniel yeah it had and in hindsight that all feels like destiny actually it was it was one man basically wrestling control of his own fate at that point managing to there's this kind of weird dichotomy of Cole's career and that we see him as this someone who occasionally was forced to deal with pressure and weight that he didn't necessarily, certainly didn't ask for and almost certainly didn't deserve. He's also a guy who, you know, his international career is looked upon unfavourably as a result.

49:26And yet, basically, two of Manchester United's biggest games in their history. He's absolutely there as, like, one of the dominant forces and doing everything that's been asked of him. Almost this, like, perfect Ferguson specimen to peak at the right moment, which, yeah, it just makes you incredibly happy for him because he, yeah, he went through quite a lot until then. And you sort of assume, I think with players, you know, Andy said it about teammates being good friends. You also assume that when a team wins a title or wins trophies, that every player feels a hundred percent happy about every trophy they win.

50:01But actually the ones inevitably, because this is how human nature works, ones where you feel special, where you feel part of it, where you feel like it wasn't just Eric coming back from the suspension and he was the difference maker, or it wasn't Beckham and Scholes. in midfield or key, when you feel actually part of it, that must just absolutely put you on top of the world. So, yeah, so happy for him. Manchester United are the champions of Europe again.

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53:02You're listening to The Totally Football Show with James Richardson. Now we do four times a week. Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy seeing glorious Technicolor on YouTube at The Totally Show. He had another two and a half seasons after the triple winning campaign, I think, at Old Trafford. what happened? It never quite hit the same heights again for him. They all saw that they didn't retain the European Cup. Real Madrid knocked them out the following year. They went to Brazil in the World Club Championship where they seemed to have a lot of fun without playing so much football. Ruud van Nistelrooy was brought in and Manchester United began to shift tactically.

53:44Juan Sebastian Varon came in with van Nistelrooy in the summer of 2001. And Ferguson felt that European football was shifting and was trying this 4-5-1 formation, which was almost the opposite of the famous 4-4-2, which had served Manchester United so well. So he had lots of interest. Blackburn Rovers had a lot of money at the time. He was living in Manchester, so he wasn't the first person to go from Manchester United to Blackburn Rovers. Dwight York also made the same journey. but I do think there are some regrets that he didn't stay longer at Old Trafford viewed with the benefit of hindsight and I think his relationship with Graeme Souness wasn't the best when he was at Blackburn Rovers but he moved around several clubs and he continued to score He certainly scored loads of goals when he arrived at Blackburn Yeah, he also, you talk about Shearer and Cole at the start of their career one following the other at Newcastle the astonishing feat of Shearer's career was how he managed to change and shape his game after injury.

54:51So he starts off as a poacher, then becomes an all-round forward after one bad injury, then more bad injury and he becomes this target man in late career at Newcastle. Cole sort of did the same. Again, underrated. He's this complete player, you know, this fantasy player at Newcastle assisting and creating and scoring. He then becomes a pure goal scorer at United because that's what Ferguson wants. And then at Blackburn, he became more of a target man. He couldn't run the channels or run in behind as much. So he became this kind of physical striker and made that work as well. Since then they've struggled to create chances.

55:24There's one here for Blackburn, it's Duffins into the area. Cole's up there too. It's got to be. It's got to be. Has he still got it? By Jove, he's got it. Andy Cole darting in, right place, right time, scores his first goal for Blackburn Rovers and that's why they paid Manchester United£8 million. I was going to ask Andy if it might be pre-empting here, Jones, but does he have any regrets, do you think, about playing for Manchester City, given everything that he'd achieved at United? I think he did it in the right way. So what annoys Man United fans is that when Peter Schmeichel played for Manchester City, he was perceived to over-celebrate a goal in a Manchester derby.

56:07and Manchester City which both of them joined were very different to the Manchester City of now they were not really a threat to Manchester United even though they had some notable derby victories and Cole felt criticism from City fans when he arrived and he felt that the best thing to do would just be to do what he does best put his head down, work hard and I think City fans appreciated that so it never became a talking point either among Blues or among Reds in the same way that it did for Peter Schmeichel, for example. It's not really used against him. And he wasn't there for that long. I think he was only there for a season before he moved on to Portsmouth.

56:49But I just think he gave it his all. And I think that they appreciated it. And Man United fans were not paying that much attention.

57:00Interestingly, I've spoke to him about his time at City and he remembered a time where a gentleman called Pep Guardiola turned up on trial to play and was politely declined by Manchester City. Not quite for us, son. Magnificent. He'd make his name elsewhere. Whatever happened to him, Andy? So, Andy Cole, along the way, part of some historically good sides, making some historically good campaigns. one team that he never really stood out for, Daniel, was England. Is it 15 caps only? Why was that? I mean, firstly, and very simply, the depth of attacking talent was so extraordinary that if you didn't hit the ground running in that England team, it didn't mean you were a bad striker.

57:51It just meant that there was two or three people knocking on the manager's door to say, well, if he won't score, I will. England weren't as strong certainly until between 96 and 98 they wobbled and Shearer and Sheringham felt like the combination until Owen came along as the boy wonder and England had a succession of boy wonder centre forwards at that point and Colt just never really got on looking I think actually the talk of that England career kind of sums up the whole thing which is that we had a real problem them in the 90s and 2000s and to some extent we sort of still do in that with English footballers we tend to look at where they maybe didn't surpass our expectations and rather than when they did so we don't look at Cole's 187 Premier League goals we go well how come he didn't score that much for England the reality is is that Alan Shearer was phenomenal for England and everything was built off that and Cole didn't take his chances early enough but I don't get the sense he and he's about to completely disagree with me here, but I don't get the sense that that's like a complete nagging regret for Cole necessarily.

59:01He was obviously very proud to represent his country and I'm sure he'd have loved to have 50 cats and score 25 goals, but it never really felt like an option. I'd agree with that, Daniel. I think there were injuries as well at key times. I think the England set was a very divided one. You had the Man United camp, you had the Liverpool camp. I don't think that helped anybody. and you did have Alan Shearer as well who was the main man but when I speak to him I don't get a sense of regrets that things didn't work out better for England. I'm sure his father would have loved him to play for Jamaica and not England so maybe there's a regret there.

59:40In fact his father wanted him to be a cricketer and not a footballer so that's how the family felt quite strongly about it But I think his focus was Manchester United. And there was a quote from Glenn Hoddle about Cole, which I think comes from the time when Hoddle was England manager and was overlooking Cole or not giving him as many opportunities as Cole might have wanted. And he said that the problem with Andy Cole was he needed five chances to score a goal. Right. And I think one of the issues that people had when they were trying to assess Cole as a footballer was that there was something a little bit unrefined about his technique.

1:00:21He would occasionally look a little bit clumsy. He'd occasionally have an air shot, but he was also capable of scoring the most difficult goals, striking the ball so purely. And he would occasionally have games where, you know, he squandered a couple of chances and then scored and scored the most difficult one. But that quote from Hoddle seemed to really stick in the public consciousness. And I can't think of another single remark by a football coach that has clung to a player as much as that quote clung to. And I think a lot of people just decided that, yeah, that was that was it. That's why Cole hasn't had an England career.

1:00:54And, you know, it wasn't justified, but I think it really haunted him. It's pretty singular to have a national team coach or manager actually speaking so directly in such critical terms of a player who is essentially there for selection. Perhaps not the happiest moment there from Huddle, but delighted to know that that didn't unduly upset Andy Cole as his career progressed. As you say, it all came to an end after a spell at Manchester City, and then there was Portsmouth, Sunderland. And then after a breeze spell with Nottingham Forest in the late noughties, Andy hung up his boots. And he's been through some challenges since then, not least a week on the road with you and he met in Ireland.

1:01:44So what was the purpose of your trip? we were doing a night with Andy Cole and I was interviewing him and getting him to tell stories from his career and and from his life and I just said to people turn your phones off and you'll really enjoy this and that is exactly what happened because he does have stories he's very funny he's very dry he has these relationships with people that are quite surprising such as his one with Roy Keane and he can tell the war stories from great Manchester United moments but also for the other clubs that he played for as well I think he was at Burnley on loan as well and Sunderland where he ends up with Roy Keane as his manager but refusing to call him manager because he's like you're the same age as me I can't call you manager I'm just going to call you Skip I'm not your skipper anymore I'm your manager so they have this ridiculous argument about what they're going to call each other and they seemed to gel and then he had health issues as well and I just stayed in touch with him throughout.

1:02:50I wouldn't say I'm a close friend of his but I would say I'm a friend and I really like him and I could have chosen pretty much any Man United player within reason to travel around and do this and I thought that Andy would be a good person to do it and I didn't regret that and you know it's weird you know i'll meet you at cork airport mate i booked you on a ryanair and part of your brain's going can andy cole fly ryanair well of course he can and there's no diva demands whatsoever and then he comes through and can i put him up in a travel lodge yeah of course i can not an issue at all and put him in the spare road andy yeah famously yeah yeah and charging for it as well when are you next going on the road with andy well we stayed in student accommodation in cork because cork's very expensive and i'm very conscious the fact that we've got a better hotel tomorrow night andy in dublin but there were no complaints at all and because he missed out on that rave in belfast we went to derry so i'm driving him around derry and i'm saying this is the bog side and this is why it's important in british history and irish history and he's like my caribbean mind can just not comprehend this so we're talking about it all and i really like that side of it and then we got invited to another raving derry okay i'm coming to this one and the demographic was a little bit older not quite our age and we sort of stood at the back and i'm very conscious that he's being recognized by a few people and the last thing i want is people coming up and having one-way conversations with him where they say you're andy cole i remember when you did this because i knew at that point it's just like it's time to go but we had a good hour in derry by the bog side him at a rave with local djs and i'm sort of thinking this is good fun this we had it we had a good week i enjoyed it i hope that he enjoyed it as well and i think there's a lot of depth to him as a person and he can draw on on a pretty incredible life story started out he was in the national school when he was a kid he was at arsenal as well and he just tells funny stories about characters all along the way.

1:04:56And he didn't get on with anyone. You can probably gather that about if he doesn't like you, then he doesn't like you. And, you know, when he speaks about so many people at Arsenal, he certainly doesn't like them. And others, he does. But I think that's interesting. And when you've got that tension, and even between him and I, where he's pointing at me on the stage going, what right have you, what qualifications have you got to critique my game? And I'm suddenly finding myself really defensive. what's your answer to that Andy well his his bugbear is how you qualify to rate me out of 10 and I'm like well look I've got a job to do and with that job I earn money and I buy food and then I feed my children when I'm not on a stage doing stuff like this and I am from a football family unlike you who are from a cricket family so I do know what I'm watching and he's like you've got no idea of the instructions that I've been given before I've gone out onto that pitch you can't possibly watch 14 players and critique them accurately.

1:05:55It's just impossible to do. And I'm losing the argument. And he's got the crowd on side as well because people like footballers more than they like journalists. And then he's coming at me and I sort of move on. Anyway, mate, let's talk about the game in Turin where you scored that goal. Daniel, as somebody who rates players and indeed entire teams with no knowledge at all of what was said in the dressing room pre-game, what is the answer? The answer is that football only happens because people watch it and people watch it because they have opinions on it. So the great universality of football is that if you try hard enough, you're allowed to have an opinion on anything and people will either listen to it or not.

1:06:38And Andy's allowed to say they're rubbish and we're allowed to say we're allowed to do them and we can agree to meet in the middle on a stage in Dublin, I guess. Excellent. Excellent. Well, it's been lovely to get your thoughts on Andy Cole. Daniel, Andy Mitten and Tom, we posed a question at the start of the show. Given that Dwight York and Andy Cole only combined assisted each other for nine goals, nine Premier League goals in the course of their time together, who were the most prolific partnerships in Premier League history? I've got five goal-scoring couples here. who wants to shout out Kane and Son yes Kane and Son are in there and you know where they are at the top at the very very top 47 goal combinations for Harry Kane and Youngmin Son Drogba and Lampard must Drogba and Lampard are in second place very good just the 36 for Didier and Frank the other one well the one I was thinking of was it with Salah, Firmino and Mane but it's whether they sort of shared them out between three of them.

1:07:52That's the problem. I think that's the problem there. There's three more couples here. None of them ever played at Anvil. None of them turned out for Liverpool, though. Aguero and Aguero and either Silva or De Bruyne, I guess. And David Silva? Yeah. Aguero and Silva, 29 goal combinations for Manchester City in third spot, equal with one other famous. Well, were they that famous, actually? Of course, Thierry Henry is involved in the partnership that they are joint third with, Aguero and Silva. But with whom? But with whom? With Wiltord or with Bergkamp? Not Wiltord. With Perez. With Perez. With Perez.

1:08:38Robert Perez and Thierry Henry. 29 goal combinations for Arsenal. The one other. Would have been 30 if they'd not cocked up that penalty.

1:08:49In at number five on the most prolific partnership in the Premier League chart. What club? What club? Spurs.

1:09:02Defoe and Keane? No. Ericsson and Kane? It's a player we've already talked about in the course of this podcast.

1:09:17a Man United player who also turned out for Spurs and had a very prolific partnership with a midfielder while there a midfielder who wasn't always fit Sheringham and Anderton yes Sheringham and Anderton 27 goal combinations for Tartan that's a deep cut yeah in terms of level of clue he's not always fit was quite a giveaway if I'm briefly honest Impressive understatement, if anything. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, there you go. Well, I hope that was to your satisfaction, quiz-wise, Tom. I have to say I found this incredibly illuminating because I am one of those people who Andy Cole know of his goal-scoring exploits but never really associate him with Camp Nou, you think of Sheringham, and Solskjaer.

1:10:10so many other areas you think of other players whether it's canton are etc with when we're talking man united and then shearer becomes the dominant figure in in kind of newcastle recollections but he was there and he was doing it and i'm glad we were able to uh acclaim him today absolutely yeah there's a uh a video that producer charlie centers as part of our part of prep not that we get spoon fed with information or anything uh and it's andy cole's greatest premier league goals it's only about five minutes long if you've enjoyed the podcast i would recommend seeking that out what should you google uh it's like andy's andy cole's greatest premier league goals and it's five minutes of just wall-to-wall bangers and i suspect there'll be a lot of goals in there that people even people who remember watching cole will have forgotten about so well worth well worth five minutes of your time brilliant andy when are going on the road once again with Andy?

1:11:03And we're doing something, I think, in Wales next year. I'll keep in touch with him. I spoke to him yesterday. I told him I'm doing this. And he's like, you know me. You know who I am. If you want to do it, do it. So I'm doing it anyway. You don't have a choice in this. All right. I forgot another little thing. There was a bit of a highlight for him this year. He loved Ronaldo, the original Ronaldo. And he came across him in social circles this year. and Ronaldo came up to him and went, Cole. And I reckon that was almost like winning a treble fight. It was absolutely buzzing that Ronaldo knew who he was.

1:11:39And it's quite nice when he tells you that. Brilliant. Andrew Cole, if you're listening to this, many thanks for your goals and everything you've done. Splendid. Andy, thank you for participating. Enjoy yourself there in Barcelona and back in Manchester when you return home. and Daniel will be seeing you soon on the Totally Football Show. Listen, I hope you'll be joining us again, perhaps for another Totally Extra. We churn these out regularly throughout the season. For now, though, that brings us to the end of this particular story. So from all of us here, it's goodbye.

1:12:26on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places. We're also at The Totally Football Show on Insta and at The Totally Show on YouTube. The Totally Football Show is an Athletic Media Company production.

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