Hardly mentioned between stories of Manchester City’s courtship of Mourinho and Joe Kinnear adding to his Things I Did On My Touchline Ban scrapbook was the quiet retirement of one of the Premier League’s true legends, Andy (or as he prefers it) Andrew Cole.

We’ve all heard of him, and doubtless if you’re of the red persuasion you think of him as a legend. But there was a twilight over his decision to quit, as there was over his entire career. Despite his goals, his treble, his four title successes and his League and FA Cup medals, Andy Cole has always seemed to have to work harder to get this success recognised. As he crept away from the City Ground with a bagful of memories and his millions from contracts banked, there seemed to be little mourning in the passing of such a prolific great.

Cole’s reputation has largely rested on his exploits for two Uniteds, Newcastle and Manchester. Obviously, his greatest successes came at Old Trafford, as part of the rip-snorting squad that marauded across Europe at the end of the last century. Cole was an integral part of the treble-winning United side of 1999, and his understanding with Dwight Yorke in that season was up there with the truly great partnerships – Keegan and Toshack, Puskas and Di Stefano, Law and Best. The mere fact that you’re probably reading that last set of statements back to yourself and thinking that’s over the top goes to show just how much we’ve forgotten about old United in the slipstream of the new.

And that’s the thing about Cole’s career – never mind his achievements, he’ll never be as lauded as a player like Best, or Rush, or Hughes or Shearer simply because he always felt like a cuckoo. It felt like a lower-league footballer just happened to have a talent for scoring loads and loads of goals at the highest level.

Cole began his career at Arsenal before swiftly being demoted to Bristol City, where his career started to blossom and his talent started to shine through. Prolific strike-rates sometimes lead us to believe that the player in question was (or is) lazy – quick over that yard but anonymous for most of the match. But Cole was an outstanding athlete with a psychic recognition for knowing when he was going to be able to fool a defender. His favourite trick was to play just inside the centre-back and suddenly turn on the pace, smacking the ball with power. Cole in full flight was a nightmare to mark and a pleasure to watch.

After becoming the darling of St James’s Park, Kevin Keegan received an offer for Cole that he felt too good to turn down and flogged him to Manchester United for £7 million. It’s hard to believe for younger fans who have been weaned on the post-Shearer ten million plus deal, but at the time this move caused shockwaves throughout the Premier League. Not only was it seen as ridiculous money, but was also seen as a step too far for Alex Ferguson, already with a side packed with talent. There was a sense he bought Cole just to head his rivals off at the pass. This seemed to be borne out by the climactic end to the 1994/5 season, where Cole’s contribution was sound but ended with United relinquishing their Premier League title to Blackburn Rovers. This was seen by some as natural justice for United trying to ‘buy’ the title with Cole’s signature – never mind that Blackburn were also seen as the team flashing their wad about with the £5.5 million signing of Chris Sutton.

To consider the career of Cole is like a trip into a foreign past, such is the short memory of your average football fan. But Cole was undoubtedly a superstar in an era trying to shake off the last vestiges of pub culture; a time of Bruce Rioch managing Arsenal and Sky Sports consisting of two channels. And despite Cole scoring 93 goals for United in all competitions, his successes seem to be condensed down to that slim period of 1999-2001 when United were in their pomp between Arsenal titles. Yorke and Cole never get the adulation for that 1999 European Cup run, boiled down as it was to two frantic minutes at the Nou Camp. Cole and Yorke made their telling contribution against Juventus in the epic semi-final. For that alone, Cole deserves more of a fanfare.

The trouble is with Cole is that he’s now seen as a striker just passing through clubs rather than one to build a team around. 13 clubs in nineteen years as a pro is just over a year on average, although he was at Manchester United for five. But like a band who blazed onto the scene with a great debut album, or even a brace of them, the later years were subject to the law of diminishing returns. With each club Cole lost more power and pace, two keystones of his game. Not for him the thoughtful approach of a Sheringham. Cole’s job was to score, not create.

The sad failure of Cole’s Nottingham Forest career puts a slight blight on the years Cole gave the Premier League, and for his contribution to the first five years of the league alone, Sky ought to offer him a role in gratitude. Another facet of Cole’s career that colours our recollection was his unease in the media spotlight. He released a single – ‘Outstanding’ – but personally I thought this was a joke; an introvert trying to prove how extroverted he could be given the chance. Cole was a footballer, not a star.

Sadly, Cole’s England career is the other factor which makes us perhaps view his years as talent wasted. Fifteen appearances and one goal just doesn’t do justice to his potency. But unlike that other goal machine of the nineties, Ian Wright, there was no loudmouth patriotism to offset the crisis. Many feel that Shearer has the edge on him because he did it for club and country, but people forget Shearer went without an international goal for over a year before Euro ’96.

It’s a shame that Cole’s career couldn’t have ended the way he imagined it, but his goals live on in the minds of many taking their first steps in a moneyed league. Andy Cole’s career straddled the Premier League from its early years to its current format, and it’s doubtful that without the excitement generated by a player like him, we’d be as obsessed by it as we currently are.

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