August 31, 2006: Arsenal Sell Ashley Cole to Chelsea

March 17, 1978: Elvis Costello & The Attractions release their album This Year’s Model. It included a song titled "I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea."

If only Ashley Cole had listened to that song.

For the record: Costello has said he's a Liverpool F.C. fan.

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August 31, 2006: On the last day of the Summer transfer window, Arsenal F.C. sell left back Ashley Cole to Chelsea F.C., sending him from North London to West London.

They didn't have much choice.

Making his Premier League debut in 2000, Cole established himself as the best English left back of his generation. He helped Arsenal reach the FA Cup Final in 2001, win the Premier League and the FA Cup in 2002 (winning both is called "The Double"), win another Cup in 2003, produce the PL's only unbeaten season in 2004, and win another Cup in 2005. At 24, he had already won 2 League titles and 3 FA Cups, and had played for England in the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004.

Unfortunately, like so many other great athletes, he began to confuse payment with respect. English football fans express payment in weeks, not years. He wanted £60,000 a week. With the exchange rate then in effect, this amounted to an annual salary of $3.2 million. Arsenal offered him £55,000 a week -- about $2.9 million a year.

For a team as big as Arsenal, an additional £5,000 a week shouldn't have been too much to keep the man who, at the time, was the best player at his position in the world, maybe 2nd at it to Paolo Maldini of A.C. Milan, and only 24 years old, 12 years younger than Maldini.

But Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein, responsible for such negotiations in place of manager Arsène Wenger, wouldn't pay the extra 5 grand. In his autobiography, which he appropriately titled My Defence, Cole described hearing that over the radio while driving on London's beltway, the M25. "Trembling with anger" as he put it in his autobiography, he pulled over, picked up his phone, and called his agent, Jonathan Barnett. He yelled, "They are taking the piss, Jonathan!"

The expression -- also known as "taking the mickey," which comes from Cockney rhyming slang, from "Mickey Bliss" -- is roughly equivalent to the American expressions "busting your chops" or "busting your balls." But Cole considered it a sign of tremendous disrespect.

In January 2005, Cole and Barnett met with Chelsea's manager José Mourinho and chief executive Peter Kenyon at the Royal Park Hotel in Lancaster Gate, Central London. Simply having the meeting, without having informed his current club first, was a violation of PL rules. So was negotiating a transfer without the permission of the current club. By offering a contract, of any amount, Chelsea were violating a rule as well. The process is called "tapping-up."

Word got out, and while it didn't seem to affect either team on the field as the 2004-05 season came to a close -- Chelsea won the League, and Arsenal won the Cup -- on June 1, an independent commission charged by the PL with investigating the story issued its findings. Cole was found guilty, and fined £100,000, or about 2.6 times the amount of additional money he was demanding. He would have been better of if he'd just sat there and taken it. Chelsea were found guilty, and fined £300,000. Mourinho was found guilty -- a manager should not be present at such a meeting -- and fined £200,000.

Arsenal fans turned on Cole, calling him "Cashley." Rumors abounded, some with more merit to them than others. He was married to Cheryl Tweedy, the lead singer of vocal group Girls Aloud. The joke was that she, white, had to marry him, black, to prove she wasn't a racist; and he had to marry her to prove he wasn't gay. Another rumor spread that he had a gay affair with Jermaine Jenas, a star player with Arsenal's North London arch-rivals, Tottenham Hotspur; and that, for reasons known only to him, he shoved a cell phone up his ass at a party.

The familiar terrace chant, "Ten men went to mow, went to mow a meadow!" became "Ten men went to bed, went to bed with Ashley!" And the rhyming of his name made another song easy: "Oh, Ashley Cole, yer a fuckin' arsehole!"

Cheryl and Ashley got together in September 2004, and married in July 2006, but divorced in September 2010, because of Ashley's infidelity. With women. In March 2006, Ashley sued the tabloids The Sun and News of the World for printing a story about a gay orgy he supposedly attended. Both papers issued retractions, and he retracted the suits.

It's almost as if the whole thing was totally for show.

Cheryl kept using the name "Cheryl Cole" for legal reasons, but became simply "Cheryl" for her music releases -- as if she was Cher or Madonna. (Well, she sings better than Madonna, anyway.) In 2014, he married French restaurateur Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini, but they divorced in 2016. She then got together with former One Direction singer Liam Payne. She had a son with him in 2017, but they broke up the next year without having married.

(UPDATE: Ashley married Italian model Sharon Canu in 2023, after they'd already had 2 children together.)

Cole played the 2005-06 season with Arsenal, helping them reach the UEFA Champions League Final. On August 31, having been held out of the team's 1st 2 games of the 2006-07 PL season -- a draw against Aston Villa in the 1st competitive match at the new Emirates Stadium, and a loss away to Manchester City -- Arsenal bowed to the inevitable, and made a trade, a rarity in English football: They sent Cole to Chelsea for £5 million and centreback William Gallas.

Cole made a public statement saying he forgave Arsenal team management for their treatment of him. He... forgave them? They didn't do anything wrong. All they did was offer a great player 91 percent of what he thought he was worth.

Gallas did next to nothing for Arsenal, developed a bad attitude, and was gone within 3 years. Cole played 8 seasons for Chelsea, and, while his private behavior, legal and otherwise, remained troublesome, his on-pitch reputation only grew. Between the 2 London clubs, ended up with 5 Premier League titles, a record 7 FA Cup wins, and, with Chelsea, the 2012 Champions League title.

He played for England in the 2006 and 2010 World Cups, and, after they failed to qualify for Euro 2008, in Euro 2012. He left Chelsea for Italy's AS Roma in 2014, came to America in 2016 to play for LA Galaxy, and after 3 years there, closed his career in 2019, back in England with Derby County.

He then went into coaching. At Derby, their manager was his former Chelsea and England teammate, Frank Lampard. He made Cole the academy coach. In 2022, Lampard and Cole went to Liverpool-based team Everton.

Whether Ashley Cole will ever be forgiven by Arsenal fans remains to be seen, but he set the pattern for future dodgy moves for players, including Aliaksandr Hleb in 2008, Emmanuel Adebayor in 2009, Cesc Fàbregas and Samir Nasri in 2011, Robin van Persie in 2012, and Alexis Sánchez in 2018.

So far, though, it looks like, as Billy Joel once claimed in a song, Cole would rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. (Not to be confused with Southampton F.C, whose team is nicknamed the Saints.)

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August 31, 2006 was a Thursday. There were 10 games played in Major League Baseball that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-4 at Yankee Stadium. Randy Johnson was the winning pitcher, although he didn't pitch especially well. He may have been the most disappointing pitcher in Yankee history. Alex Rodriguez went 3-for-4 with a home run and 2 RBIs. Derek Jeter went 1-for-2 with 3 walks.

* The New York Mets lost to the Colorado Rockies, 8-4 at Coors Field in Denver. Jeff Francis outpitched Óliver Pérez. David Wright hit a home run for the Mets.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 6-4 at Fenway Park in Boston. David Ortiz did not play.

* The Washington Nationals beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-5 at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. The game went to 10 innings, and both teams scored on mishandled pitched: The Phillies got a run home in the top half, thanks to a passed ball by Nats catcher Brian Schneider; while the Nats tied the game on a Brian Schneider single, and then, with Ryan Church at bat, Aaron Fultz threw a wild pitch, and Marlon Anderson scored the winning run.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Atlanta Braves, 8-6 at Turner Field (now Center Parc Stadium) in Atlanta. Barry Bonds went 2-for-3 with a walk before leaving the game.

* The Tampa Bay Devil Rays beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-3 at the new Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) in Chicago. Jorge Cantú singled home the winning runs in the top of the 10th inning.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Royals, 3-1 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Florida Marlins, 5-2 at the new Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Albert Pujols went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 7-5 at Ameriquest Field (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* And the Houston Astros beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-3 at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston.

May 21, 2008: John Terry's Slip

May 21, 2008: The UEFA Champions League Final is held. For the 1st time, 2 English teams play each other in it. So, of course, the venue is… the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. As with the Super Bowl, the site is chosen years in advance, in the hopes that it will be a neutral site.

Cristiano Ronaldo of Manchester United and Frank Lampard of Chelsea traded goals in the 1st half. There were no more goals in the 2nd half or in extra time. The game went to penalties, with United's Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar facing Chelsea's Czech keeper Petr Čech.

United won the coin toss, and chose to kick first. Carlos Tevez made his kick, while Michael Ballack made his. Each goalie went in the correct direction, but neither could stop the shot. In the 2nd round, both Michael Carrick and Juliano Belletti -- brought on by Chelsea manager Avram Grant in the last minute of extra time, specifically to make him available for penalties -- successfully converted. This time, each goalie went in the wrong direction.

Cristiano tried to play a mind game with Čech, stopping short, and starting again, kicking to his own left. He outsmarted himself: Čech dove in the right direction, and knocked it away. Lampard converted, past van der Sar, going in the right direction, putting Chelsea up, 3-2. Owen Hargreaves and Ashley Cole each converted, despite each goalie getting a fingertip on it. It was 4-3 Chelsea.

In the 5th and last round of regular penalties, needing to convert to keep United alive, Luís Carlos Almeida da Cunha, a.k.a. Nani, converted, despite Čech going the right way. It was up to Chelsea's Captain, John Terry, already infamous for his racism and for the drunken abuse that he and Lampard had given stranded American tourists at an airport hotel after the 9/11 attacks -- but not yet having had an affair with the girlfriend of teammate Wayne Bridge -- to make Chelsea the Champions of Europe.

Ordinarily, the Luzhniki had artificial turf. In order to qualify as a host for a European tournament final, real grass had to be laid down. It was too newly laid down, and it was wet from the rain that fell throughout the game. Terry slipped as he made contact, and the ball glanced off the right goalpost. It was 4-4.

The penalties went to sudden death. Anderson Luís de Abreu Oliveira, like many Brazilian players known by just his first name, another end-of-game, in-case-it-goes-to-penalties sub, kicked it down the middle, with Čech going to his left. Salomon Kalou sent van der Sar the wrong way, and it was 5-5.

Ryan Giggs kicked to his left, and Čech went the other way. It was 6-5, and it was up to Nicolas Anelka for Chelsea. He kicked to his left, and van der Sar saved it. United had won.

The already-knighted Sir Alex Ferguson

with the European Cup, a.k.a. "Ol' Big Ears"

Chelsea regard Terry as "Captain, Leader, Legend." But even after Chelsea finally won the Champions League in 2012, after spending so many of Roman Abramovich's petrodollars -- a Final that Terry missed due to injury -- the defining moment of his career isn't his bad behavior, on and off the pitch, but that slip in Moscow.

The Luzhniki, formerly the Lenin Stadium, joined the Olympic Stadiums of Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Munich and Athens, and London's original Wembley Stadium, as stadiums hosting an Olympic Games and a European Cup/Champions League Final. However, it did not join old Wembley and the Olympic Stadiums of Berlin, Rome and Munich as stadiums hosting an Olympics, a European Cup Final and a World Cup Final. The old stadium has been demolished and replaced, and it was the new Luzhniki Stadium that hosted the 2018 World Cup Final.

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May 21, 2008 was a Wednesday. Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were in progress, but no games were scheduled for this day. There was 1 game in the NBA Playoffs: The Los Angeles Lakers beat the San Antonio Spurs, 89-85 at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 8-0 at Yankee Stadium. Darrell Rasner pitched 7 innings of 5-hit shutout ball, and Joba Chamberlain allowed 1 hit over the last 2 innings. Alex Rodriguez went 3-for-4 with a home run and 2 RBIs. Derek Jeter went 0-for-3 with a walk, and had an RBI on a groundout.

* The New York Mets lost to the Atlanta Braves, 11-4 at Turner Field (now Center Parc Stadium) in Atlanta. Jair Jurrjens outpitched Mike Pelfrey. Chipper Jones bedeviled the Mets again, hitting a home run. So did Jeff Francoeur.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 6-3 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Washington Nationals, 12-2 at Nationals Park in Washington. The Phils scored 6 runs in the 6th inning. Ryan Howard went 3-for-5 with 2 home runs, a walk, and 4 RBIs. Both Pedro Feliz and Shane Victorino also had 3 hits including a home run. Jamie Moyer was the winning pitcher.

* The Florida Marlins beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 3-1 at Dolphin Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, Florida.

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 4-3 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-1 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Seattle Mariners, 9-4 at Comerica Park in Detroit.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-2 at U.S. Cellular Field (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Minnesota Twins, 10-1 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Houston Astros beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-3 at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Colorado Rockies, 3-2 at Coors Field in Denver. Omar Vizquel, the longtime superb shortstop for Cleveland, drives Ray Durham home with a sacrifice fly in the top of the 10th inning.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Diego Padres, 11-3 at Petco Park in San Diego.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 9-1 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the McAfee Coliseum).