Michael Cole (footballer, born 1966)
English footballer (born 1966)
Michael Wade Cole (born 3 September 1966) is an English former footballer who played for Ipswich Town, Port Vale, Fulham, and Chelmsford City in the 1980s and 1990s. A forward, he scored eight goals in 90 league games in a seven-year career in the Football League.
Career
Cole began his career at Ipswich Town, who finished 17th in the First Division in 1984–85 under Bobby Ferguson's stewardship. The "Blues" were then relegated in 1985–86, just one point behind the safety mark set by Leicester City. They reached the Second Division play-offs in 1986–87, where they were beaten by Charlton Athletic at the semi-final stage. New boss John Duncan dropped Cole from the first-team and led the club to eighth position in 1987–88. Cole spent four weeks on loan at John Rudge's Port Vale from January to February 1988. He played four Third Division and three FA Cup games for the "Valiants", and scored one goal in a 3–2 win over York City at Bootham Crescent on 6 February. He returned to Ipswich from Vale Park, only to move permanently to Fulham. He had scored three goals in 38 league games during his time at Portman Road.
The public source identifies “Michael Cole (footballer, born 1966)” as english footballer (born 1966). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Michael, Cole and footballer.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6829340. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966, 1984, 1985 and 1986.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michael Cole (footballer, born 1966)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.