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Devante Cole won’t forget the first conversation he had with his manager at Manchester City, Manuel Pellegrini.
Excited to be called into the squad for the club’s pre-season tour of South Africa in 2013, the son of Manchester United and England forward Andy Cole quickly had the wind taken out of his sails by the Chilean.
‘His first words were: “Are you sure you want to come?”’ recalled Devante, who chose to leave City in the summer after what he considered unfair treatment of the club’s English players. ‘I told him I did, and then he said, “It’s OK if you don’t”. We then stood looking at each other.’
While Pellegrini was possibly setting a test for the young striker, the abrupt exchange came to symbolise the frustration Cole felt over the way things changed for homegrown players at City after the Abu Dhabi takeover in 2008. He’d been with the club from the age of seven.
‘I had a choice, them or United. I picked City because I enjoyed it more and it was the best place for youngsters,’ he said. ‘They’d brought through players like Micah Richards and Shaun Wright-Phillips.
‘Then they got their money and everything changed straight away. They started buying foreign boys for the academy and all the English lads got pushed to one side. As you got older, you realised you wouldn’t get a chance of progressing no matter what you did.
‘Some players were picked regardless of form because they’d had millions of pounds spent on them. It wasn’t fair on the ones who’d come through the ranks.’
While Jose Pozo and Marcos Lopes got first-team chances, Cole and fellow long-time academy player Jordy Hiwula left the Etihad without making any competitive appearances. Striker Cole, now 20, is scoring goals at League One Bradford City as he seeks a return to the Premier League.Hiwula is at Huddersfield in the Championship.
‘I played for the first team in South Africa but when I came back, I wasn’t in and around it,’ Devante says. ‘The foreign players were always pushed first and if you’d seen us all train, you wouldn’t see a difference in ability.
‘It is very cliquey at City. The manager has that connection with some players, Hispanic-like. I still have my friends there and they tell me this, and obviously when I was there I saw it as well. They’d speak Spanish on the training pitch.’
Those who remember Cole Snr, whose record of 187 Premier League goals is equal to Wayne Rooney’s and second only to Alan Shearer’s 260, will know he was not afraid to speak his mind. In that respect, Devante is a chip off the old block, and fell out with key figures at City after believing he was the victim of injustice.
‘I am a mixture of my parents,’ he explains. ‘My mum Shirley is my social side, the first one to have a laugh and mess around. Like my dad, I can switch off to people if I lose faith in them. I had the chance to join Southampton at 16 and in hindsight I regret it because their youngsters, like James Ward-Prowse and Luke Shaw, are given an opportunity.
‘Last Christmas I turned down a contract offer at City and told them I wanted to leave in the summer. That’s when it all got a bit difficult and they tried to sell me behind my back for a fee.
‘Brentford were in and that interested me as a loan because I’d met and liked their manager, Mark Warburton. On the day I was going, I was told the clubs had agreed a fee at the end of the season, so I wouldn’t have had any choice even if other clubs came in later. That was when I understood I was in the real world of football. I was upset about it, annoyed, frustrated.’
In the end, Cole chose to join MK Dons on loan, helped them win promotion to the Championship, and then signed for Bradford in the summer on a two-year contract. He scored his fifth goal of the season in a 1-0 victory at Doncaster 10 days ago.
He still lives at his family home in Cheshire and the relationship with dad has become even closer following his career upheaval.
‘I didn’t listen to him as much as I should have. The last six months, it has hit home what he says,’ says Devante. ‘He has been in my position. When he was 20, he had to leave Arsenal for Bristol City. Two years later, he was back in the Premier League with Newcastle and that has really stuck with me. This is the time when you realise where your hunger comes from and I think I can get back as well. City shouldn’t have let Daniel Sturridge go, he was a forward who liked to attack and take people on, something I admire and try to put into my own game. I want to prove City were wrong about me as well.’
The strong-willed Cole genes are clearly there. Andy fell out with various managers, including Graeme Souness at Blackburn, but he got on famously with Sir Alex Ferguson and he’s still close friends with United’s Class of ’92. Devante has also spoken his mind, even to the legendary Patrick Vieira, coach of City’s development side.
‘Vieira did a lot of good for me. At the same time, we clashed a lot,’ he admits. ‘It was our personalities. He doesn’t like people who answer back and say what they believe. I will be open and say, “I don’t agree with you”.
‘But I think our differences probably helped me do well, I wanted to show him.’
Shortly after he turned four, his father was part of Manchester United’s 1999 Treble-winning side and, smiling, he says: ‘I remember the Champions League final against Bayern Munich. We watched it at home. Mum had her friends round and everyone was going crazy.’
The surname brings added expectation but Devante is sure he can cope. ‘If it was going to put me off, I don’t think I would have ever started,’ he says. ‘Anywhere you go, it’s “That’s Andy Cole’s son”. You get abuse from away crowds but if you can’t handle it, the game isn’t for you.’
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