THE son of Manchester United legend Andy Cole bagged a stunning hat-trick on the opening day of the season.
Barnsley kickstarted their League One campaign in style with an emphatic 7-0 win over Port Vale at Oakwell.
But it was Devante Cole who stole the show with a brilliant treble.
Cole, 28, spent his youth career at Manchester City, after his United legend dad Andy’s brief stint at the Etihad.
But he never made a first team appearance for the Sky Blues instead shining in a brief loan spell with Barnsley, before permanent moves to fellow third-tier sides Bradford, Fleetwood, Wigan and Doncaster.
After a fruitful spell in Scotland with Motherwell, Cole rejoined the Tykes in 2021, and has now scored 19 goals in 70 league games.
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And he’ll look to improve that record this season after making the best possible start.
Cole opened the scoring on Saturday as he slotted home after a brilliant low ball in behind by debutant Corey O’Keefe.
And he proved to be far from finished as he blasted home two more in the space of five minutes during the second-half.
Cole will be thanking team-mate Nicky Cadden for not stealing his hat-trick goal which just about trickled over the line.
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Manager Neill Collins told the BBC: “Devante Cole has impressed me. He scored goals at really important times. He took his goals fantastically well”.
Devante chose to leave Man City permanently for Bradford in 2015 after what he considered unfair treatment towards the club’s English players.
He stated: “They’d brought through players like Micah Richards and Shaun Wright-Phillips.
“Then they got their money and everything changed straight away. They started buying foreign boys for the academy and all the English lads got pushed to one side.
“Some players were picked regardless of form because they’d had millions of pounds spent on them. It wasn’t fair on the ones who’d come through the ranks”.
But he seems to have put the past behind him as he looks to help the Reds secure that all important promotion this season.
Liam Kitching, Jon Russell and Andrew Dallas were on also on target while Dan Jones netted an own goal as new boss Collins got a dream start with last season’s play-off finalists.
It was the biggest win on the opening weekend of a Football League season since Wolves beat Manchester City 8-1 in 1962-1963.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
