‘This is massive for our generation’ – Joe Cole switches focus to NHS heroes with £1m charity drive

Joe Cole harbours big ambitions for his coaching career – and left Chelsea‘s academy in January to chase those dreams – but he has now seen the coronavirus outbreak change his focus.

Trips to Germany and working with England‘s Under-21s were things Cole was looking forward to after leaving the Blues. Now, he has a bigger mission and that’s to support the National Health Service (NHS) frontline workers.

Along with his wife Carly, Joe is a co-founder and ambassador of the Heroes charity supported by the British Medical Association. The Chelsea legend has helped raise £270,000 for charity and is working along with 20 volunteers to provide Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), counselling and child support among much more for those working to save lives.

As of Friday, another 847 people died in the UK after testing positive for Covid-19 as the death toll passes 14,000. Cole’s perspective has now changed drastically as he targets raising £1 million, and he feels the need to ‘help them help us’, which has become the motto for Britain’s fightback.

“The help the NHS does now needs to be remembered,” Cole told Goal. “It is going to be a massive thing for our generation. There’s been nothing like this in our lifetimes that has affected the world so much and touched all our lives.

“People are losing loved ones at the top end of the scale; then there’s people’s jobs being taken away or just being locked in. It is something that has made us realise that we are all in it together. We need to be better to people.

“We need to hold onto it when we come out of this on the other end. Globally, we need to make sure it can’t happen again. We started up the charity initiative which has gone crazy and it has taken up a lot of our time. Me and my wife have been looking to help because we have a lot of friends in the NHS: doctors, nurses and surgeons.

“We wanted to put our money somewhere and we didn’t find the right place that we liked. We met some friends and started it four weeks ago. It has gone from strength to strength and we have raised over to £270,000 and we are going strong.

“We are getting PPE to the frontline with the donations from companies and brands. We are just bringing awareness to it and trying to do our bit. We have 20 volunteers working with us with all different skill sets. It has taken on a life of itself and it has been a force for good.

“This is not something that is just for the next four or five weeks. This is something we hope stays around for a long time because these people are heroes with what they do. We are delighted we can do a little bit to help but you have to do it.”

Like many in football, Cole’s life has been disrupted with charity work replacing his time on the training field. He continues his TV work – with his children switching his lights on and off in a recent appearance – and he hopes to avoid a repeat on BT Sport’s Early Kick-Off.

Live TV from home comes with some risks attached 🤣🤣

Joe Cole’s kids have done him no favours here! #UELThrowbacks pic.twitter.com/d9fNtZp1U5

— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) April 16, 2020

“It was an unbelievable year. My journey at Chelsea is not done yet; I am sure I will be back someday in some capacity. I learned so much. It is amazing what a high-level environment it is and it is shown by the achievements.

“Everyone there was brilliant and I just wanted to broaden up my horizons. I will probably come back at some point. I had set up training ground visits all over the world that I was lining up. I was going to be with England U21s in March for that campaign.

“I was going to get over to Germany to work. I had all these things in place which have been knocked back. I want to go around the world and meet the top managers at top clubs to see what everyone is doing to be at the front.

“There’s a sense of that [wanting to be a coach like Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard or John Terry], but I don’t see it in the near future. I see a different route. I will come out of this and we will all have different perspectives on life.

“It is something that I will do at some point and stepping into that I want to be well informed by going around the world and I love my job at BT Sport. I am picking up and learning all the time. When my time comes I will know, but at the moment I have a lot to do. The show, my charity and I feel like it is a lot on my plate.”

Cole will retain a close relationship with Chelsea despite his switch. Indeed, his year at Cobham has allowed him to have a close look at some of Lampard’s young squad with Mason Mount perhaps providing some similarities to Cole as an attacking midfielder with flair and an eye for goal.

There’s a sense of excitement from Cole to see football return when it is safe to do so and he believes that Mount is good enough to last at his former club for over a decade.

“Mason is a terrific player with the world at his feet,” Cole said. “He is a fantastic footballer with a great attitude. It is like 99 per cent of the lads in the academy who are so well-schooled off the pitch in that system that they have been brought up in.

“He has the right attitude. I think he could potentially be at Chelsea for the next 10 or 15 years. It is a privilege to have watched him come through the youth stage in the latter stages that I did. He has developed into the player he has.

“I think he will be better after this stoppage as he will have time to take it all in and realise what he has done. After this, he will be a better and stronger player. That first game when we sit down together as a world community to kick-start the Premier League will be a great moment.

“We will all sit back and we will all remember how much we are privileged to be living in this age where we can watch these Premier League players and these Champions League players do their thing.”

Get the whole family involved with Joe Cole’s skills masterclasses, every Saturday on BT Sport’s Early Kick-Off show, 12.30pm, live on BT Sport 1 – get your football fix alongside Premier League throwbacks and exclusive interviews.