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Consequently Cole's colour and culture became the subject of discussion. He responded politely and articulately, spoke forgivingly of racism he endured when young, of having Ledley King and Jlloyd Samuel as close friends then, of his love of Michael Jackson, Alexander O'Neal and his uncle's insistence on having Elvis Presley on in the car on the way to matches as a boy. None of which - certainly not Jackson and Presley - is black and white.

"At primary school you'd get kids who don't know what it means saying 'you black bastard', 'nigger'," Cole said. "You don't condone it, but kids don't know what it means. My dad's from Barbados but I lived with my mum. She brought me up; my uncle took me to the football. I grew up in a white family, I'd say. It was Bow, east London, with Ledley, Jlloyd, just a lot of young people trying to get through life."

Cole is getting through. The title race rather than the human race would be his preferred topic - Arsenal's game tomorrow at Liverpool and Chelsea's Premiership challenge - but this day, blue was not the colour. Aragonés had specified an Arsenal player's blackness. So uncomfortable questions are prompted.

Cole addressed it using a football cliché - with a twist. "At the end of the day," he said, "I'm human. I'm English - I was born here. Of course I'm a different colour from you, but I'm still human. The main thing is, I'm human - like everyone else. Because I'm a different colour doesn't mean there is a difference."

It is a remarkable fact to have to assert in 2004 but the humanity of Cole and England's black players was questioned in the Bernabéu by people willing to paint them as members of the animal kingdom.

Spain shocked the 23-year-old and he was glad his mother had not travelled to the match. Back in England she turned off the television in disgust; back in England Cole felt as he should, at home. The abuse Dwight Yorke received at Ewood Park last Sunday is a reminder that there is long way to go in England too, but Cole is positive about his country.

"I think England has become more tolerant," he said. "Walking down the street you don't hear things. In the Premiership I have not heard anything - Manchester, Liverpool, wherever you go, it's good. I think the foreigners can vouch for that and I think the t-shirts and campaigns have worked, definitely. But when you go away with your club team or your country it seems to be getting worse and worse. It's not changing. Thierry got most of it at PSV [two seasons ago]. I have had it for England in Slovakia, Macedonia, Albania, now Spain. It just seems to be everywhere apart from England."

As an example of England's tolerance, Cole said that his being the face of a new sportswear campaign was significant. He pointed out that two other players abused in Madrid, Rio Ferdinand and Jermaine Jenas, are fronting advertising for other brands. "It's good for me to be in the shop window - 20 years ago you maybe would not have seen a black person in the shop window. As I said, I think times have changed and in England for the better. I'm happy with it. But there are white players doing things, too. It's equal in England."

In Spain, though, it is different. Cole's equanimity was shattered in Madrid and when a copy of last Friday's El Mundo was placed in front of him showing his 44th- minute face-to-face confrontation with Aragonés, Cole's unease was plain. "Of course you don't want to hear racist chants, but sometimes as a player you have to take it," he said. "But when you hear the manager saying things and not backing down then it does get to you a bit.

"When I went to get the ball there he pushed me. He pushed me first - as a coach you can't do that. I pushed him, which was stupid. I shouldn't have gone down to his level. But I was just shocked that he pushed me. I didn't understand why. I didn't do anything to him - I was just walking off to get the ball. I shouldn't have pushed him back but with everything that was going on I was a little bit mad and lost my head a bit."

Given what Cole had just endured he had good reason to lose his cool. For him the pain of the whole Aragonés affair was increased by the central presence in it of José Antonio Reyes, another valued and trusted Arsenal team-mate. Reyes was the player Aragonés made the "black shit" remark to and Cole said Reyes left the Bernabéu wondering what the world would make of his country. "He was disappointed," Cole said. "It's his country. He was pretty down about it. He's not like that - he's so nice. We talked about it a bit, but we couldn't laugh about it."

Laughter, one quickly discovers, is part of Cole's make-up and, as some of these questions provoked sighs, he was happy when they were finished.

Five years after his November debut for Arsenal in a League Cup tie at Middlesbrough, Madrid capped an eventful month for Cole. Since late October's "Battle of Old Trafford", in which Cole was the victim of Ruud van Nistelrooy's violence and after which Cole was named as the pizza-thrower (strongly denied) in the tunnel, he has been in the eye of a tornado. It is probably just as well that when Arsenal go back to Old Trafford next Wednesday in the League Cup Arsène Wenger will be taking his young team.

"It's been an odd month," Cole said. "It always seems to be me. Of course I've done stupid things in my career and I do always seem to be in the paper, but I hate seeing myself. Every time we play Man U something comes up.

"We lost the game and it is hard not to think about it because it's in every paper: who did this, who did that. And I was named - shock. It's just so annoying when you see your name in the paper for these things you didn't do. I didn't chuck anything. I weren't even there, nowhere near it. I was in the changing room. Soup! Crazy.

"Of course there were tackles, and there was the penalty, but passion runs high in these games and both teams are so eager to win. But I did think the media blew it out of proportion - a bit. Everyone saying we were chucking food, or there was a big fight in the tunnel. It wasn't like that. Of course a few things happened that shouldn't have happened but tempers were running high. But I talk to Gary Neville and we laugh about it now. Yet it is still in the paper - "Pizza-throwing II" when we play them at Old Trafford."

After that come much bigger fixtures, at home to Rosenborg in the Champions League and then, a fortnight tomorrow, Chelsea. It reflects on Liverpool that the Chelsea fixture is already stalking the Arsenal horizon and Cole understands why: "Don't get me wrong, Liverpool is going to be a tough game. But I don't think it's got the spice it normally has. It's probably Arsenal and Chelsea who are the two now.