Has enough time passed to show Ashley Cole some love?

On 29 March 2015, something remarkable happened at Anfield: the Kop sung Fernando Torres’s name. It was a familiar sound at the ground in the years immediately following the Spaniard’s arrival on Merseyside in July 2007, when he scored goals with swaggering regularity and became a bona fide Liverpool great, but then he joined Chelsea and his subsequent visits to Anfield saw the air filled with poison. Those who once adored El Nino now cursed his every move.

So what happened on that spring afternoon in 2015 genuinely came as a surprise, though it helped that Torres was taking part in a charity match organised to raise funds for the Liverpool FC Foundation. The mood was genial, fun and, ultimately, touching.

The moment came back to me as I watched a documentary about Ashley Cole on Sky Sports last week. The former England left-back was interviewed alongside a handful of former team-mates and coaches, including Ray Parlour, Sol Campbell and Ray Wilkins, and as they spoke I wondered something: What would the reaction to Cole be like were he to play in a charity match at the Emirates? Would he get the Torres treatment?

It’s worth pondering at a time when Luke Shaw’s career is sliding ever further down a black hole and the left-backs chosen for England’s latest squad are Danny Rose and Ryan Bertrand. Both are fine players, Rose in particular, but neither are in the class of peak Cole. Wilkins has said some daft things in recent weeks (stop smirking Sevilla fans) but he was on the money when, in the documentary, he described the man he worked with at Chelsea as “the best left-back England has ever produced”.

Cole really was that good. A perfect blend of athleticism, defensive awareness, skill and courage. He won 107 England caps – the sixth highest in the national team’s history – as well as three Premier League titles, seven FA Cups and the Champions League. Aged 37, Cole is still playing for LA Galaxy and looks as trim and agile as he did when he made his debut for Arsenal in November 1999, aged 18 and with few aware of the talent that was to blossom from the self-proclaimed scrawny kid from Stepney.

Cole has been a model of excellence and longevity, a true English great. The type of player statues are built for. Yet what is he best remembered for? Greed and celebrity. Don’t believe me? Google his name and see which search terms pop up first. If your laptop is anything like mine it will be ‘wife’ and ‘net worth’.

The stigma largely stems from that section in that book. For the unaware, it was called My Defence and, in it, Cole detailed how he came close to swerving his car off the road upon being informed that Arsenal were only prepared to pay him £55,000 a week not long after he had helped them win the title on the back of an invincible run.

My Defence came out in 2006, around the time Cole was in the throes of a relationship with pop star Cheryl Tweedy and trying his hardest to force a move to Chelsea, which he did soon into the 2006/07 season having undertaken ultimately exposed secret talks with Jose Mourino and Peter Kenyon, Chelsea’s manager and chief executive at the time. It was the most modern of modern-football circumstances and on the back of a World Cup in which England’s supposed Golden Generation fell short, Cole became the poster boy of a domestic game gone wrong. These were flash lads who didn’t know they were born…or how to drive properly.

Disgust was expressed across the board but particularly pronounced within Arsenal’s fanbase. Cole became Cashley, bank notes were waved in his direction and a sense of betrayal formed. Cole was one of their own but now he was hated by all Gooners.

But what about now? What would happen if Cole featured in a well-intentioned, charity-focused game at the Emirates now? Would the crowd wave banknotes and boo? Or, rather, would they cheer and sing his name?

Arsenal blogger Tim Stillman feels it would more likely be the later. “Quite a bit of water has passed under the bridge,” he says, “and in a more modern context, his move to Chelsea would be viewed differently.”

Of that there appears little doubt, because while back in September 2006 Cole’s decision to join Chelsea was widely viewed not only as an affront to Arsenal but also Arsene Wenger – the man who had just led the club to a Champions League final and a shiny new stadium – now, nearly 12 years on, it merely looks like the start of an exodus of top-level talent to domestic rivals that underlines Wenger’s weakening power in the red half of north London. After Cole there came Emmanuel Adebayor, Samir Nasri, Robin van Persie and, most recently, Alexis Sanchez. Rather than being a traitor, perhaps Cole saw the winds changing and was simply the first to jump.

It was hardly the wrong choice given the success he went on to enjoy at Chelsea. And in regards to Cole’s supposed greed, let’s return to Wilkins: “When Ashley was at Arsenal, there were a lot of guys coming in from foreign shores who would’ve been earning far more than he was earning. When you’ve got the best you have to pay the best. Arsenal weren’t prepared to pay him what he felt he deserved so Ashley went and got himself a better deal. I don’t see any fault in that.”

In an article he wrote about Cole three years ago, Stillman disputes that theory to an extent, making the point that, as far as he is aware, ‘Arsenal were happy to honour Cole’s basic salary demand but were not prepared to foot the extortionate fee levied by his agent, Jonathan Barnett.’ That may well be true, in which case it could be argued that Arsenal showed startlingly naivety in their attempts to keep hold of an important asset. Shock horror: football agent looks to make money out of high-profile client. It’s the way the modern game works.

At this point it feels important, and necessary, to go down a difficult road: Did the stigma and scorn which hit Cole in the aftermath of his move to Chelsea, and which to an extent still characterises him now, have something to do with race?

Call it the Sterling paradigm: that outpouring of sneering and disapproval which is directed towards a young black/mixed-raced man as soon as he comes into wealth and fame. This country’s class and racial hierarchies are suddenly thrown into confusion, leading to a backlash from figures of establishment. Some get angry, some get upset…some write about the man’s crystal-encrusted sink.

There’s no doubt rich black/mixed-raced men are spoken of and written about in different ways to their white counterparts. There are more references to bling and gangster culture, to excess and, in extreme cases, criminality. It’s why black men driving expensive cars are far more likely to be stopped by police than white men doing the exact same thing and why, as Chris Rock said during his devastating 1999 live show, Bigger and Blacker​: “There isn’t a white man in this room who would change places with me … and I’m rich!”

To stress: I am not accusing Arsenal fans of being racist. This is the club of David Rocastle, Paul Davis, Ian Wright, Kolo Toure, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry, of arguably the most diverse fanbase in world football and, let’s not forget, collective adoration of Cole prior to his move across the capital. Their loathing of the player was and has been more specific, rooted in sporting rivalry more than cultural snobbery.

In general, however, there is something strange – bordering on sinister – in the lack of recognition Cole has received, not to mention a notable sadness. Sadness in the fact Cole became a villain at the club he supported as a boy and from whose youth ranks he emerged, as well as sadness that we, the football-watching public, will never know Cole properly.

If his appearance on the Sky Sports documentary is anything to go by, Cole is a nice guy. Articulate, thoughtful and, believe it or not, humble. Out in LA, there also came the distinct sense that he is keen to come home.

Would the Emirates embrace Cole? Perhaps. Should we all embrace Cole? Definitely. As his namesake and former Chelsea team-mate Joe Cole puts it: “In Italy or Spain he would be celebrated and lauded. We’ve not done that enough with Ashley Cole.”

Sachin Nakrani – follow him on Twitter