Published by Headline UK in September 2006
This is a memoir about winning, losing and scandals on the road to the World Cup 2006, revolving around a controversial player torn between two Premiership clubs.
Ashley Cole takes the reader into the dressing room and boardroom in his final days at Arsenal, in the final year at Highbury. Fans can re-live Arsenal's 'Invincible' season and England's 2006 campaign in Germany. There's also the personal story of his relationship and wedding with Cheryl (nee Tweedy).
The back-lash to this book is infamous, and the 'scandal' sure followed upon publication - after England's tournament exit, after Ash left the Gunners to join arch-rivals Chelsea. Not the sweetest of PR platforms.
I've grown accustomed to 'media storms', but the one that Ashley endured after the release of My Defence was particularly pernicious and unwarranted. This project was a lesson that no matter how hard you work to balance a book's content, certain media can - and will - warp its message.
For this is the book which demonstrates how Ashley Cole is the least greediest footballer in Britain. And yet, its media representation painted him as the greediest.
It did so because of one scene in which Ashley tells how Arsenal offered him £55,000-a-week, and he nearly swerved off the road because that was 'taking the piss'. This was also the starting point for the serialisation in The Times, London.
Consequently, Ashley was held up as the fall guy for all that was obscene, greedy and out of touch with footballers. Arsenal fans boycotted the book. The media declared war on the man. The facts didn't matter. Myth created headlines.
Had anyone bothered to read the back-story to the £55k offer - and had the Times serial not started in the middle of the book - the facts may have stood a chance (except, perhaps, with Arsenal fans!)
Rated at £20m by his own club, Ashley - previously on £35k-a-week - knew he could have commanded £100k-a-week in a new deal being negotiated. Indeed, other players (Henry, Viera, Campbell, Edu) urged him to maintain the wage structure. But Ashley, conscious that his working class friends wouldn't earn his wage in a lifetime, asked for £60k. How many Premiership footballers would actually concede £40k-a-week in this day and age??
Ashley believed that David Dein agreed that deal by handshake. But when Dein and Arsene Wenger took those terms to the board, Arsenal FC politics kicked in. Offer him £55k-a-week, said the board. Wenger stood up: "Are you seriously asking us to risk losing a player of Ashley's calibre for the sake of £5,000-a-week?" The board said yes. That's not Ashley's version of events. That's what is recorded in the official board minutes.
Ashley had felt that his concession of £40k-a-week was a declaration of his loyalty and intent to stay - until they quibbled over that £5,000.
That is the truth behind the 'greediest footballer in history', and it's all in the book, described by one reviewer as "a final love letter to Arsenal". I spent six months with Ashley and Cheryl, even joining them in Baden-Baden for the World Cup. I doubt there's a nicer, more grounded couple in celeb-land, and few projects will be such fun or with such great people.
