Totally Extra: Andy Cole - the Premier League's most underrated goalscorer?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
The Athletic FC.

**James Richardson** (0:09)
Totally Extra, today, it's a Cole-powered edition, as we salute one of the Premier League's greatest, or perhaps most underappreciated goal scorers, record-breaking, record-making Andrew Cole. He wasn't cuddly, and he couldn't bear Teddy, but there's lots of love for the hero of two Uniteds in this Totally Extra.
It's Thursday, the 3rd of September, with The Totally Extra for you. We have in the studio, Tom Williams.

**Tom Williams** (0:50)
Hello, James.

**James Richardson** (0:51)
Hi, Tom. On the big screen, Daniel Storey.

**Daniel Storey** (0:55)
Good afternoon, James.

**James Richardson** (0:57)
Yeah, very well, thank you. Daniel is actually sharing his screen space with today, Andy Mitten. Andy, who's joining us from Barcelona.

**Andy Mitten** (1:06)
How are you doing?

**James Richardson** (1:07)
Lovely to have you on, Andy.

**Andy Mitten** (1:10)
Sorry about that. I've just spent seven days on the road with Mr. Cole, so he's very fresh in my memory.

**James Richardson** (1:17)
You've just spent seven days on the road with Andy Cole, in a kind of weird Man Utd trip mash-up thing.

**Andy Mitten** (1:26)
We traveled around Ireland together. We started in Cork. I met him at Cork airport, and then we drove north to Dublin, to Newry, to Belfast, to Derry.
Him and I spent a lot of time together. We even went to a rave together. Wow.

**Tom Williams** (1:40)
Was this a professional trip or do you and Andy just go on holiday from time to time?

**Andy Mitten** (1:45)
It was a professional trip, although he has been to stay with my family in the past.
This was someone I didn't really have a relationship with when I played for Man Utd. I thought he was hard work and he has since said to me that, I just didn't really like journalists. I didn't think you knew what you're on about. Even last week was taking me to tasks saying, how are you qualified to give me a rating when you've got no comprehension of what the manager has instructed me to go and do on the pitch? I'm like, okay, is this turn off here for Belfast, mate, or is it the next one?
He's a good guy. I like him. When he stopped playing, I did a four-hour interview with him and my perception of him completely changed. When he started telling me about his dad being a minor in Nottinghamshire-Colefield, his background, and I found that he's a private and quite shy person, but once he trusts you, then he's a real person of integrity. My mother and my wife both adore him, my children adore him, and I thought we'll travel around Ireland together. He was totally up for that, and I feel quite protective over him because he gets recognised everywhere, and I tried to take him in some pubs in Dublin, and he just got smothered. Couple of Fridays ago, when we finished our do, the promoter said, we've got a rave on, do you want to come in Belfast? I went, yeah, I'll try it for an hour. Andy Cole said, no, I'm going to go back to the hotel. I went to this rave, five or six thousand people there, and the average age was 18, which is a little below my age.
And I sent Andy some audio and video of this rave going on, and he put it out on his own Instagram implying that he was there. So this might be quite complimentary when we speak about him today, but I thought that was quite disingenuous of him to be doing that because his millions of followers thought that he was an ultra-cool raver. Right.

**James Richardson** (3:45)
Still very much in dance culture.

**Tom Williams** (3:48)
I was still very much in center-forward mode. Didn't get a touch on the evening, but he's claiming it all the same.

**James Richardson** (3:55)
Remarkable. I also take from that is that nominative determinism, his dad was a miner named Cole.

**Andy Mitten** (4:02)
Yeah.
And when you're a miner in the 70s and 80s in Nottinghamshire, when the miners strikes going on, when you've suffered the racism which his family suffered. I said to him, did you ever go and watch Forrest or what's counting? He said, no, it just wasn't the thing for a kid of my estate to do. But his dad was quite an inspirational figure. He didn't like football. He only watched him three times in his entire career. He wasn't there at camp now. He was a cricket man, mildly disappointed that Andy didn't become a cricketer. I think he's got six sisters.
So he said, you'd think that would help me understand the female psyche. It hasn't. And he said that his father shouldered a lot of the abuse and didn't bring it home to the family. But he also said to him, when you're down the mine, we're all black, son, we're all the same down there. And then at his father's funeral, one of his dad's friends came up to him and said, you know, your dad was really proud of you. And that's not something that his dad had ever said to him. And that really meant a lot to him because he was a top, top footballer. But the more I get to know him, I know him as a top human being.