'I was just in a deep, dark place after West Ham got relegated. I didn’t want to leave the house, feeling that I’d let people down' Joe Cole on the Hammers' improbable relegation

Joe Cole experienced all the highs and lows life as a precocious young football player has to offer.

Cole was a big name from a young age, emerging at West Ham United with a formidable reputation and endless promise.

He scored one of England's best-ever goals at the World Cup finals but he also went through a relegation with his boyhood club – and as its great hope, to boot.

Joe Cole on West Ham's relegation

"I made my first-team debut for West Ham in 1999, then won the FA Youth Cup – in the final, we beat Coventry 9-0 on aggregate," Cole tells FourFourTwo.

"Back then, the Youth Cup was the be all and end all, and to win it with my mates, the lads I’d been playing with since I was 12 or 13, it was really special.

"The club were really proud of us. I was achieving all of my dreams. The season afterwards, I scored my first Premier League goal in a 5-4 win against Bradford – that game was just wild, back and forth, tackles flying in.

"Unfortunately I broke my leg in April – apparently there’d been a chance that I might go to Euro 2000, even though I was still only 18. Kevin Keegan did take Steven Gerrard and Gareth Barry to that tournament, and we were all young players bursting through, so I would have been in the reckoning.

"At 21, I was made captain of West Ham, which was a massive privilege as a young man. It was a difficult time for the club because we were stuck in a relegation battle, and ended up going down on 42 points, remarkably."

The Hammers were relegated along with Sunderland and West Bromwich Albion. Bolton Wanderers' total off 44 points was the lowest of that season to survive. Cole carried the weight of that season with him for some time.

"It was a wild season. People look at the names in that squad and wonder how we went down, but I was 21, Michael Carrick was 21 and Jermain Defoe was 20, so we weren’t the players we went on to become, though we were still good players. We also had Freddie Kanoute and Paolo Di Canio, but we had a lot of injuries to senior players and the squad was thin."

"Les Ferdinand came in January. He was 36, but if we’d had him at the start of the season, then it might have made a difference. We only lost one of our last 11 games that season," Cole tells FourFourTwo.

"I felt a responsibility for the club, trying to drive the team forward. In terms of my own performances, it was actually one of the best seasons I ever had – I was playing central midfield and I was a man possessed. I was playing well, but the team just wasn’t gelling.

"When we were relegated on the last day of the season, I knew it would be my last game for the club, but I wasn’t thinking about that, I was just in a deep, dark place – you want the world to swallow you up.

"As footballers, we’re blessed to do what we do, but the highs are high and the lows are low. I can still remember not wanting to leave the house, feeling that I’d let people down."