Ashley Cole was one of us.

He played football for one of the biggest teams in England, played in a European Championship and a World Cup and married his pop star girlfriend. He has been paid countless thousands during his time as a footballer. He likes a mobile phone.

Yeah, he was one of us.

When Cole was loaned to Crystal Palace, the Eagles fans were desperate for the club to sign him from us. However, Arsène knows, so Cole came back, replaced passport man Silvinho, and never looked back. His immediate strengths were his pace and his attacking ability. His positional sense improved with every year, and we watched a home-bred English player reach the heights of “Best left-back in the World” at Euro 2004. He was brilliant that summer, following our unbeaten season.

Then, as you do when you get better at your job, he asked for a pay rise.

We still don’t know the Arsenal side of this story. No one has yet said anything. However, Cole’s camp made it clear that his employers verbally offered £5,000 per week more than the official contract offer on the table. Cole’s camp was incensed. Then, in its wisdom, Cole’s camp arranged a meeting with Uncle Jose and Uncle Peter, asking for more money than his present employers were offering. However, this meeting wasn’t, strictly speaking, kosher, and they were caught. Pictured in The Sun, a paper with which Cole’s camp would later establish an unlikely alliance, Cole was duly embarrassed. But he strode out at Villa Park on the following Saturday, scored arguably our best goal of last season, and then kissed his badge to prove where his allegiance lay. All sorted then. However, Arsenal sought retribution, and asked the FA to look at it. Cole’s camp argued that the meeting was not arranged at their behest, but to no avail. Strangely, even though Cole’s camp was not happy with his present employers, he signed an extension to his contract, for not as much money as he initially wanted.

Last season was a nightmare for Cole’s camp. They appealed against the fines given to Cole and his agent, but no luck. Cole was injured for most of the season, missing our run to the Champions League final, and putting his precious World Cup place in doubt. He thanked Sven for helping him through the pain, but not Arsène. Meanwhile, Chelsea looked on still, never solving their left-back problem. Then Ashley learnt to write, and a book was to be serialised in a paper that made unfounded allegations that he used to vibrate to a DJ’s tunes, The Sun. Cole got married on the day of our first pre-season match, to his pop star girlfriend (you would, still, wouldn’t you?), and then fired off a transfer request, via a press release, suggesting that we had gone backwards as a team and that we had fed him to the fishes.

It will hurt seeing him in a Chelsea shirt. But it is the only decision. He doesn’t want to play for us, so goodbye. I want to wish him all the best, but I can’t. I will, however, say thanks for the memories. It was great, as I said, to see him develop in front of us.

The best part of the deal is that we can now laugh, not cry, when England embarrass themselves in the next international tournament, feeling totally blameless as we’ll have no players in the England squad. Theo, your time will come.