Joe Cole hailed as ‘best 12-year-old ever’ by West Ham mentor as he retires

Did Joe Cole fulfil his potential? According to the man who helped nurture him, West Ham legend Tony Carr, Cole’s glittering CV answers that question emphatically.

It is one that has been repeatedly posed during the latter years of Cole’s career and cropped up once again on Tuesday almost immediately following his retirement after 20 years as a professional.

An unbelievably skilful playmaker capable of things others wouldn’t even dream of, the buzz around Cole as early as his mid-teens was huge due to his youth football feats for club and country.

He was labelled the next Paul Gascoigne, had an Adidas boot deal at age 14 to rival the ones handed to senior Premier League players and embarrbaded West Ham’s first-teamers when he trained with them as a schoolboy.

Back then, anything seemed possible.

And Carr insisted: “He has certainly fulfilled his potential there is no two ways about that.

“Look at his CV. Underachievement? Christ, there are a lot of players that would have liked to have achieved half of that.”

Then-Hammers scout Dennis Coxall spotted Cole playing in Islington and excitedly reported back to Carr: “I’ve just watched the best player at under-12, under-13 I’ve ever seen.”

West Ham’s head of scouting Jimmy Hampson quickly arranged for Cole to come in and Carr recalled: “The first time we set eyes on him it was just about how do we make him stay.

“It was his dribbling ability. Every time he got the ball, he drove at players and beat them, as a young schoolboy, with relative ease and was very exciting to watch. He did audacious things. Things that made you smile. He was cheeky so to speak.”

Like anyone privileged enough to witness him, especially as a rising starlet, Carr has his own, favourite jaw-dropping Cole moment.

He said: “It sounds a bit silly, but if you remember in the film Escape to Victory when Ossie Ardiles in that slow motion, got the ball and flicked it over his head and over the opponent’s head and ran around the other side, well Joe did that in a friendly game when he was about 13. It made you gasp. You couldn’t believe it.”

Cole won his six major honours and most of his 56 England caps after joining Chelsea in 2003.

He said: “Winning trophies at Chelsea was particularly special. Those memories will live with me forever.”

But it was also the place where he became more of an effective team player than an individual magician under Jose Mourinho while he was never quite able to recover from a cruciate injury he suffered in 2009.

It is testament to his ability and love of the game that, despite the string of niggles that followed, Cole recovered to continue his career at Liverpool , Lille, West Ham, Aston Villa, Coventry and Tampa Bay Rowdies after leaving Chelsea in 2010 before now retiring aged 37.

Cole is now planning to go into coaching, having had a taste of it at Tampa.

He added: “I feel I can offer a lot. To lend my experience to help other young footballers achieve their dreams, just like I did, is a big pbadion of mine.”