DEVANTE COLE
I’ve never seen my dad as Andy Cole, United legend. But I remember watching him in one of United’s big European games. I wasn’t meant to be up, but I snuck downstairs. I just remember seeing it and thinking, ‘Wow, what’s going on here? This is massive.’
Because of our ages, we never quite got to cross over and train together or do gym work together. I do remember when I was 15-ish, we had a race and I beat him, but that was when he was coming to the end of his career. A couple of years later, when I was getting to 16 or 17, he’d retired and he wasn’t really doing too much in the gym or football-wise. I remember the day he retired, he was like, ‘I’m just done with it.’ I think he’d fallen out of love with the game a bit.
When he needed his kidney transplant, that was a really tough period. He was in his prime and it was like he almost went back to being a baby again, where he needed help doing the most basic things – help to get a water bottle or walk across the room. My dad’s always been this prime athlete and someone who is a very, very strong man. Physically, I’d never really seen him struggle with anything. So to see that all taken away from him, it almost puts it into perspective. Like, it can go at any time. Life is that delicate.
How does the football I play compare with my dad’s? I think it’s the same game, but I think it’s played differently off the field. When I was growing up, there were little changes coming into football, like your protein shakes and your recovery, but I feel like now it’s that stage where there’s as much emphasis on fitness, recovery and making sure you’re as good off the field as you are on the field. I’ve got into it massively in the past few years – I’ve been obsessed with my Whoop for about four or five years.