{"id":292491,"date":"2025-10-10T17:29:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T17:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/292491\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T17:29:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T17:29:32","slug":"joe-cole-names-the-signing-west-ham-made-that-left-him-absolutely-starstruck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/292491\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Cole names the signing West Ham made that left him absolutely ‘starstruck’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s fair to say Joe Cole was given a rather brutal introduction to Premier League football under Harry Redknapp at West Ham United.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brought into training when he was just twelve or thirteen, former Hammers hero Ian Bishop remembers the time hard-man extraordinaire Julian Dicks welcomed Joe Cole<\/a> by booting him up in the air with one of those typically full-blooded lunges.<\/p>\n

He might have been at an age where most teenagers are not even thinking about their GCSEs but, as far as the less forgiving members of the West Ham United<\/a> squad were concerned, if you are good enough, you are old enough to receive some pretty rough treatment.<\/p>\n

Welcome to senior football, and all that.<\/p>\n

The legendary Ian Wright did not hold back either, when a 17-year-old Cole failed to deliver the through ball he was looking for on what was his first-team debut during an FA Cup clash with Swansea City in January 1999.<\/p>\n

Yet, despite a few choice words from his idol, one of West Ham\u2019s greatest-ever academy graduates still recalls with great fondness the time he saw Wright walk through the doors at Chadwell Heath for the very first time.<\/p>\n

\"Ian31 Oct 1998: Ian Wright of West Ham United scores his first goal for the Hammers during the FA Carling Premiership match against Newcastle United played at St James’s Park in Newcastle, England. The match finished in a 0-3 win for West Ham United Mandatory Credit: Phil Cole \/AllsportJoe Cole was \u2018starstruck\u2019 when West Ham United signed Arsenal legend Ian Wright<\/p>\n

And while Cole knew all there was to know about a striker who joined the Hammers after becoming Arsenal\u2019s all-time record goalscorer, Wright had heard a thing or two about his new baby-faced teammate as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiving in Camden, I loved Wrighty!\u201d Cole recalls, speaking on The Good, The Bad, and The Football podcast. \u201cAnd then when he signed for West Ham, I was proper starstruck. <\/p>\n

\u201cI remember he walked into Chadwell Heath. You know what he\u2019s like! I\u2019m sitting there and I could hear his voice coming in. I\u2019m like, \u2018wow, it\u2019s Ian Wright!\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he\u2019s come in and gone, \u2018where\u2019s the wonderkid? Where is he?\u2019 And I\u2019m going, \u2018oh, he\u2019s talking about me, man!\u2019 And I even think I said, \u2018I\u2019m here, Ian\u2019. I called him Ian!<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said something like, \u2018I can\u2019t wait to play with you\u2019. I was just buzzing. I went home and told the boys. <\/p>\n

\u201cI made my debut with Ian Wright! I came on the pitch against Swansea, got the ball, looked up, he\u2019s made a run. I\u2019ve gone to play it and thought, \u2018it\u2019s not on\u2019, and he just abused me.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat got me ready for first-team football!\u201d<\/p>\n

Jermain Defoe idolised Premier League great Wright <\/p>\n

Wright would score nine Premier League goals during his one and only season at West Ham before winding down a fabulous career at Nottingham Forest, Celtic and Burnley.<\/p>\n

Another homegrown West Ham wonderkid, a certain Jermain Defoe<\/a>, was an obsessive member of the Ian Wright fanclub too. So much so that, during his early days in the Charlton Athletic academy, Defoe poured over every single one of Wright\u2019s 185 Arsenal goals until he could envisage them with his eyes shut.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know that ReWrighting the Record DVD? I used to watch it every single night after training,\u201d Defoe says. \u201cIt was crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The aforementioned Bishop would not get the chance to play alongside Wright, having left West Ham a few months before his arrival in 1998.<\/p>\n

Bishop does recall the signings of John Hartson<\/a> and Paul Kitson, however, as well as Joe Cole\u2019s formative years in claret and blue.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne time Harry brought Joe Cole [to train with the first-team],\u201d Bishop says. \u201cHe had been talking about this little kid and how good he was. He was 12 or 13.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Redknapp] brought him into training, and Julian smashed him up in the air! Well, if he\u2019s training with us Harry, it\u2019s your fault!<\/p>\n

\u201c[Even at that age, Cole was] superb. He tore David Unsworth left, right and centre. \u2018Unsy\u2019 couldn\u2019t stay with him. [Cole] left him on his backside a few times.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s fair to say Joe Cole was given a rather brutal introduction to Premier League football under Harry…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":292492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[5407,102724,149819,149820,220,221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-292491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-arsenal","9":"tag-ian-wright","10":"tag-jermain-defoe","11":"tag-joe-cole","12":"tag-premier-league","13":"tag-soccer","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115351058476936058","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}