Inside Andy Cole and Teddy Sheringham’s off-pitch feud regardless of treble glory
Andy Cole and Teddy Sheringham might have won the treble together during their time at Manchester United but that didn’t prevent a bitter feud off the pitch.
Sheringham’s equaliser against Bayern Munich in the Champions League final was pivotal to United’s success, but it wouldn’t have been possible without Cole’s contribution in the semi-finals against Juventus.
While Cole had a more substantial role in the league title win, scoring 17 goals compared to Sheringham’s two, Sheringham made a decisive impact in the FA Cup final victory.
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Both look back fondly on their success in 1999, but they weren’t exactly the best of friends, the Mirror reports. As Andy Cole turns 53, we take a look back at their bitter personal rivalry.
While Sheringham didn’t join Cole at Old Trafford until 1997, their feud dates back even further. “It was early 1995, I had recently signed for Manchester United, and it was my England debut, against Uruguay,” Cole revealed in a 2010 column for The Independent.
(Image: Manchester United via Getty Images)
“I was a sub. I came on for Sheringham after about 70 minutes. You’ll need to understand what was in my head at that moment to get even close to comprehending my reaction to what happened next.”
“I was so nervous it was frightening. This was the culmination of a lifetime of ambition. You hear the cliche, ‘It means everything to play for my country’. But trust me, it did. Not just for me, but for my family, my parents especially, who had endured all kinds of hardships to give us the chances we had.
“Becoming a pro had been incredible. Now the magnitude of playing for England was indescribable. The moment has arrived.
“I walk onto the pitch, 60,000 or so watching. Sheringham is coming off. I expect a brief handshake, a ‘Good luck, Coley’, or something. I am ready to shake. He snubs me.
“He actively snubs me, for no reason I was ever aware of then or since. He walks off. I don’t even know the bloke so he can’t have any issue with me. We’re fellow England players, it is my debut and he snubs me.
“You know what my immediate thoughts were? ‘Jesus Christ!’ How many people just saw Teddy Sheringham do that to me? I was embarrassed. I was confused. And there you have it. From that moment on, I knew Sheringham was not for me.”
(Image: Getty Images)
Two years after that snubbing, the pair were club teammates as Alex Ferguson brought Sheringham to Old Trafford. The bad blood hadn’t dissipated, but the pair were able to broadly go about their business, up until a match against Bolton in the 1997-98 season.
Cole scored a late equaliser in the Old Trafford match, preventing United from losing a third straight league game. However, Sheringham blamed his fellow frontman for the Trotters’ goal and it didn’t go down too well.
“I run up the tunnel and just as he gets to the dressing room, I’m ready to steam in,” Cole would later recall. “I’m screaming all sorts and trying to throw punches, but everyone’s on me, pulling us apart.
“The next thing I know, Roy Keane has me up against the wall and he’s shouting in my face. ‘What the **** are you doing, Coley? Sort yourself out. We’re a team’.”
Despite the pair not seeing eye to eye, United were still able to get the results they needed. That, as Cole explained, was in no small part down to manager Ferguson.
“He understood me as a person and even with the Teddy Sheringham thing he was fantastic,” Cole revealed to The Guardian. “He mentioned it to me once and then let it go.”
Sheringham has been more reticent about discussing his relationship with Cole, but in 2019 remarks suggest the ice may have thawed. “We never got on as players,” Sheringham admitted to The Mail.
“You get on with some people in the workplace, but some you don’t like and don’t want to be around. That was the case with me and Andy. We just didn’t click. But we’ve made our peace.”
Relating an incident that signalled warmer relations, Sheringham recalled bumping into Cole in a club. “I was out with my mates and he was with his wife Shirley. I saw him walking towards me and I thought ‘Hold up’,” Sheringham recounted.
His apprehension was palpable, “He’s got quite a deadpan face anyway. There wasn’t a big smile. I thought: ‘Here goes. Maybe after all these years.’ I had my guard up. He came towards me and I could see Shirley looking at me thinking, ‘F***ing hell, what’s going to happen?’.”
The moment of reconciliation arrived when “He put his hand out and said, ‘let bygones be bygones and put everything behind us’. I said, ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that. No problem’. I shook his hand and that was that.”
In the 98/99 season finale, Cole netted the championship-winning goal after stepping in for Sheringham against Spurs. However, the tables turned in Barcelona when Sheringham equalised after Cole was substituted for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who ultimately scored the winning goal.
Despite their frosty relationship at the time, it seems that time has mended their differences.
