Ashley Cole

On 5 February 2013, The Daily Mirror eulogised thus:

"Ashley Cole... the greatest left-back to wear that famous white shirt, (Emlyn Hughes, Ray Wilson and Terry Cooper might disagree) will become only the seventh player to win 100 caps when he lines up against Brazil at Wembley. 

But while Bobby Moore, Billy Wright and Sir Bobby Charlton are part of football folklore, Peter Shilton respected, and David Beckham and Steven Gerrard loved by millions, Cole accepts he is not viewed in the same light. 

Cole said: 'Maybe I don’t get the recognition and praise, but I don’t want to sit here and keep going on about wanting to be loved'."

Perhaps there's a reason why England fans have never been too keen on loverboy.

I mean, does he not remember the time when 'larking about with a .22 air rifle... he fired at the work experience student from five feet away?' Not exactly the kind of thing to endear a multi-millionaire to the law-abiding lowly, I wouldn't have thought.

And then there's the repeated cheating on Cheryl and 'sex-texting women... seeing ex-lapdancer Sarah Purnell' and that sort of thing.

In the same 30 June 2010 edition of The Sun, we were also informed of a Blackberry message sent by our Ashley just hours BEFORE flying out to England's pre-World Cup training camp in Austria. He posted the following as HIS STATUS MESSAGE, allowing all those designated as his friends to see it:

"I HATE ENGLAND AND THE F***ING PEOPLE!"

Thus spake a bloke who earns in one English week what most of the 'the f***ing people' would be lucky to earn in five years! Well, Ashley, we, 'the f***ing people' never did 'hate' you. We just wish you, and others who feel as you do, would address your feelings in a logical way.

If you weren't all that keen on England or the English back in the day, common sense might have suggested that you relocate to some place else, where 'the people' were more to your liking. I mean, the £120,000 or so you pocket every week would certainly have allowed you to set yourself up in style anywhere else on the planet, now wouldn’t it?

The hate-filled black chap didn't heed my advice. Our World Cup 'flop' (The Sun's 2010 epithet) is having far too much fun in jolly old England earning bundles, being our 'greatest' ever left-back, not being loved (except, one imagines, by the odd Girls Aloud and lapdancer type) and, once in a while, biting the hands that feed him.