There is a scene in the sports-agent movie Jerry Maguire where Tom Cruise’s super-rich NFL client notices a Reebok commercial being filmed, and takes the opportunity to bemoan his endorsement poverty.
”I ain’t getting no love from Chevy,” he rages. ”Ain’t getting no love from Pepsi. Ain’t even getting no love from that little Energizer Bunny. I ain’t getting no love from Nike. Obviously, I ain’t getting no love from Reebok. Did I ever tell you my Reebok story? I’ll boil it down for you. Fuck Reebok. All they do is ignore me. Always have.”
Strip away the Cuba Gooding Jnr character’s charisma, and you are left with Ashley Cole, who used his first media conference as a Chelsea player last week to explain he had made the move that tortured us all because he wasn’t getting no ”love” from Arsenal.
If you found those protestations somewhat emetic, you will be throwing up your pancreas by the time you get to the end of My Defence, which, even by the self-regarding standards of recent footballer books, must be deemed the mother lode.
After the whining, rule-breaking and interminable magazine shoots that have besmirched his past year, Ashley’s defence would be a tall order for the lawyer who got Michael Jackson off. In his own hands, it is delusional enough to suggest a formal intervention is in order.
The book is quite possibly the least self-aware media outing since a turquoise tracksuited David Icke proclaimed he was the son of God on Wogan, and was mystified by humanity’s lukewarm response. The one thing it supports is Thierry Henry’s claim earlier this summer that his former teammate was misunderstood. Evidently. He is far more ghastly than any of us suspected.
Hard to pick a place to begin, but let’s join Ashley in January 2005, driving somewhere on the north circular — probably in his Aston Martin — when his agent Jonathan Barnett calls. He has grave news. The Arsenal vice-chairperson, David Dein, will not meet his £60 000 a week pay demand, offering a mere £55 000 a week.
”When I heard Jonathan repeat the figure of £55 000,” writes Ashley, ”I nearly swerved off the road. ‘He is taking the piss, Jonathan!’ I yelled down the phone. I was so incensed. I was trembling with anger. I couldn’t believe what I’d heard.”
The only missed opportunity to underline his distress is that he did not indeed swerve off the road and kill an innocent bystander. What more noble cause in which to die than as collateral damage in Ashley Cole’s flounce about £5 000?
”History will always remember me for going behind the back of Arsenal to encourage interest from Chelsea,” is Ashley’s self-effacing verdict on what he still ludicrously insists was a ”chance meeting” with the Blues in a discreet hotel. ”But one man’s version of history is another man’s different account. From my viewpoint …”
For a moment there I thought we were being seriously asked to listen to Ashley Cole’s discourse on historiography.
Staying with Tom Cruise movies, it seems apposite to recall the moment in Top Gun when his commanding officer warns the brash talent: ”Son, your ego’s writing cheques your body can’t cash.”
Were Cole a combination of Pele and Maradona he could not come close to being able to cash the cheque that is My Defence. Not the publisher’s cheque of course — that has been banked in the same bottomless pit that welcomed the £1-million he took from OK! magazine in July to cover his wedding day.
Nevertheless, we are subjected to endless insistences that Ashley is just a feet-on-the-ground East End boy, as though your average East End boy is given to walking out on his job when he does not feel enough love from his employer. Arguably, the most offensive statement is that Arsenal supporters should not boycott the book. ”I say read it first.” What nonsense.
Arguments over footballer venality are so well worn that to rehearse them again seems old hat, but the alternative is a validating silence. How much money — sorry, ”love” — is enough for these people? If the opprobrium My Defence invites at least spares us a follow-up volume in two years’ time, when Ashley ain’t getting no love from Chelsea, it will be indignation well spent. — Â