Ever since poor Ashley got the bird during England's triumphant thumping of Kazakhstan on Saturday, the national media have been tripping over themselves to bemoan those 'moronic' and 'ignorant' supporters who deigned to show their disapproval at Old King Cole's fluff of a back pass.
As always, media-hirelings such as Mark Bright have been wheeled out to accuse supporters of jealousy; broad-sheet and red-top hacks have waxed lyrical about Cole's ability and the wonders of the Premiership; radio chat show hosts have treated any phone-in call suggesting Cole somehow deserved the cold shoulder with palpable disdain.
Typically, and predictably, they have all missed the point.
Cole was not booed because of he gave away a goal, he was booed because people have no empathy with him – they do not relate to his media profile, his wage demands, or his lifestyle. They don't like him.
More to the point, it may in fact be nearer the truth to suggest that it was not really Ashley Cole who got booed on Saturday. Rather, it was English football that got the verbal equivalent of the two finger salute.
All this got Stan thinking. Back in the mid-70s, a similar thing happened with pop music.
What had emerged as popular culture in the '50s and '60s was, by 1975, a burgeoning multi-million pound industry.
Whereas, in the mid-1960s, your Pete Townsends or Steve Marriotts were popping pills with their mates on Monday before playing to them on the Friday, by 1975 they were living in another world.
Most pop stars were tax-exiled or hidden away in their country mansions; the bands that had formed in the back streets to infuse British culture over the 60s were now comprised of over-dressed millionaires who chose only to play luxurious stadiums when the mood took them or their cocaine bill demanded it.
As a consequence, going to see a band became more expensive, the razzmatazz associated with a concert became more overbearing, and a new breed of pop star emerged. In short, the likes of Elton John and Rick Wakeman became the media face of British pop: preening, ostentatious and seemingly nothing like the mugs who queued at the record shop in their lunch hour to hear the latest tunes.
Pop became prog – overblown and pompous. The press loved it, and the TV loved. The millionaire pop stars flouting in a limousine loved it. But a lot of people didn't.
The heroes who had been loved because they were 'lads like us' getting up and doing it, had become untouchable cultural royalty, brown-nosed by the media and the first name on the corporate gravy train.
Of course, punk came along and blow all that out of the water ? for a time at least.
But the analogy holds true to football, particularly in the Premiership. Mick Dennis' recent column suggested that some fans would bemoan Norwich giving a long-serving local ref a complementary ticket and a free cup of tea.
Not at all, but a lot of us do – no doubt – begrudge free tickets being handed out to wealthy businesses on the off chance that they might fill an executive box or give us a couple of quid (fat chance).
Similarly, most football fans would happily carry Bobby Charlton to his free seat at every England game, but they despise the fact that such a high proportion of Wembley's seating is put aside for corporate 'guests' who may or may not bother to show up.
None of us, too, are happy that our clubs are all in debt because Sky money, wages and agents' fees have ensured that hardly any team can live within its means without being bank-rolled by a wealthy owner with what seems like cash to burn.
All of which leads us down a well-trodden path – that football, or the Premiership end of it at least, no longer feels like a people's game.
The fans no longer feel an affinity for the players in the way that they did in times gone by. And while the media big-hitters love the red carpet treatment they receive at the Emirates, and get off on drinking champagne at the same charity dos that Cole and Lampard pop into, they have lost sight of what football means to people at the grass roots.
Football is not about glamour and glitz; it is not an entertainment choice.
Football is a culture that embodies many facets, with local identity and community being but two of the most important.
As this suggests, many of us don't always like – or respect – the people who wear our shirts and represent our clubs, cities and country.
They are no longer 'one of us', they are 'one of them', and have lost all too much as a consequence.
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