Amy Lawrence
Gliding over the deep red lino in thick claret socks which flap around his calves, Joe Cole looks like your average teenage apprentice milling around the training complex. His life is about to change for ever. He is about to embark upon a journey of infinite possibility. If fortune favours him, he could experience the kind of adventure available to perhaps a couple of players in a generation. At the age of 17, in what will be his first season as a fully-fledged member of the first team, he is expected to mesmerise and shine. He is expected to ascend to the national team before too long.
His reputation, while he was still polishing boots, gathered substance at an alarming rate. He inspired an extraordinary amount of newsprint, likened to Diego Maradona and Pele into the bargain. The tale of how Alex Ferguson would ask about his progress every time he spoke to Harry Redknapp is already legend. This month he stars in the current edition of a glossy football magazine – learn football the Joe Cole way. His team-mates, regularly left awestruck, have nicknamed him “the conjurer”. All this while he has a mere nine appearances to his name.
Such pre-career hype is enough to make you fear for his future sanity. The latest comparison, with a gifted young Geordie of a few years back called Paul Gascoigne, inspires both elation and caution. In fairness, it’s not easy to rein in your excitement when Kevin Keegan places Cole at the top of a list of teenagers too promising to wait for: “I put him first because there is a shortage of that type of player. He’s a Gascoigne-type player. He can make things happen, hold things up, let the ball run. Sometimes you look at him and think, ‘How do you do that?’ and then you realise it’s just talent and feeling. What he can do is tremendous.”
It’s amazing to think that Cole was just three years old when Gascoigne made his professional debut. The England manager was mightily impressed with Cole when he joined the squad for experience at the end of last season. If he produces in the premiership, Keegan believes he is ready for his country. “It’s up to him. Michael Owen forced his way into the England side, you just had to pick him. The players force you to put them in.”
Whereas Gascoigne’s international debut came four years after his league introduction, it is not inconceivable Cole could be in contention at some stage of the remaining Euro 2000 qualifiers. The idea doesn’t faze him at all. Sitting at West Ham’s training ground, the young Londoner relishes whatever challenges strew his path.
“If you want to be a player as badly as I do, you have to be ready,” he explains, keenness detectable in his voice, tenacity in his eyes. “You have to make yourself ready and I know I will. As soon as the whistle goes of any game I’ll be fine, whether it’s the youth team at Chadwell Heath or England at Wembley. It’s just the same game. You do the same things everywhere.
“People talk about pressure but I’m pretty comfortable with it at the moment,” he shrugs. He seems astute enough – and perhaps programmed enough – to sense where people are looking for his weaknesses, which can’t be a bad thing these days. The trainees at West Ham, who would be his peers if his ability weren’t so advanced, have different body language to Cole – more casual, more cocky. Cole has a seriousness and a focus more in common with Owen or Alan Shearer than Gascoigne.
This explains why the similarity with Gascoigne – aside from the obvious link between their impulsive gifts at a tender age – starts and finishes with their position. Gascoigne, by his very nature, was always susceptible to the fame game. Cole, by his, has a chance of coping. If Gascoigne were as daft as a brush, Cole would more likely play keepie-uppie with it, alternating between handle and bristles, before going home to his folks.
His support system is backed up by a close-knit family and a protective club. Interestingly, his agent/minder, Jimmy Hampson, worked for West Ham but gave up to look after Cole.
The West Ham way is not to mollycoddle or dole out special treatment. Still, Redknapp admits he feels a special responsibility to guide Cole well.
“It’s so easy for these kids, especially someone with his talent, to get the wrong advice and start to go off the rails. I tell him regularly, ‘Watch good players train, look after yourself off the pitch, be nice to people.’ If he does that he’s got a fantastic future.”
The only evidence of a chink in Cole’s armour noticed by his mum is increasing pre-match nerves.
“I’ve got a great family,” Cole smiles. “Whatever happens, they will be there for me. That’s good in football because you’re going to have downs, many downs, probably more than ups. But if you’ve got your family there, you can always turn your back and forget about it. Some people, if they’ve got a broken home or something, find football is the only thing they have got. I’ve got many other things apart from football in my life, so it’s easier to switch off. I’ve got a good set of mates, good family, we do a lot of things together. I’m never really sitting down dwelling on things and worrying. I try to keep myself active.”
Ian Wright, not unfamiliar with the vagaries of the sporting spotlight, is a true admirer: “The most endearing thing about Joe is he doesn’t gloat and give it large about what is God-given talent. He simply does what comes naturally but never shows off, and that’s why everybody likes him so much.”
Just about every club with a scout coveted Cole, and he was invited to visit a host of the country’s finest. West Ham gave him a free rein – they didn’t want him to feel trapped and rebel. It worked and he stuck with them.
In last year’s Rothman’s Football Yearbook, the name “Cole, Joseph J” appeared in small print under the clumsy heading “Associated schoolboys who have accepted the club’s offer of a traineeship/contract”. One year on he sits boldly in the main squad list just before Di Canio. Suitably buoyed, his ambitions for the season are to hold down a regular place and to win a trophy. And if by any remote chance his progress does splutter, he is at least still eligible for the FA Youth Cup.