Highlights

• Teddy Sheringham and Andy Cole disliked each other during their time together at Manchester United.
• The animosity began in 1995, when Cole felt Sheringham snubbed him while making his England debut.
• Despite their feud, they enjoyed huge success together at Old Trafford.

Despite playing together at Manchester United for four seasons, Andy Cole and Teddy Sheringham disliked each other. While this might sound bizarre considering they enjoyed so much success on the pitch together, it's absolutely true.

But how did their career-long feud start? And why didn't the two elite strikers patch up their differences, even after becoming teammates at Old Trafford in 1997? Let's rewind to when the animosity began, two years earlier in March 1995.

Cole was left "embarrassed" by Sheringham, who was five years his senior, after coming on for his England debut at Wembley against Uruguay. Sheringham appeared to blank Cole as he left the pitch. You can watch footage of the incident below:

Andy Cole: Sheringham Embarrassed Me

'I didn't want to play the game after that'

"I didn't want to play the game after that," Cole told The Daily Telegraph in 2019. "That's how embarrassed I felt. Snubbed on the line when you’re making your debut as a young kid, I mean … I think I hit the bar in the game but I couldn’t fathom it, I couldn’t get it out of my mind.”

In a 2010 column for The Independent, Cole added: "I walk on to the pitch, 60,000 or so watching. Sheringham is coming off. I expect a brief handshake, a 'Good luck, Coley', something. I am ready to shake. He snubs me. He actively snubs me, for no reason I was ever aware of then or since. He walks off. I don't even know the bloke so he can't have any issue with me. We're fellow England players, it is my debut and he snubs me.

"You know what my immediate thoughts were? 'Jesus Christ! How many people just saw Teddy Sheringham do that to me?'

"I was embarrassed. I was confused. And there you have it. From that moment on, I knew Sheringham was not for me."

Cole: I Never Spoke to Sheringham

'Unless we were arguing, we never spoke'

When Cole heard that United had signed Sheringham in the summer 1997, he thought it was a surprising and strange decision from the club's manager Sir Alex Ferguson. "We never spoke," Cole said. "Unless it was going to be another argument between us, never spoke. We didn't exchange a single word while we were there."

In his column for The Independent, he added: "We scored a lot of goals. I never spoke a single word to him. People wonder how on earth we could function like that.

Gary Pallister once said to me: 'I know you don't speak to Teddy and he doesn't speak to you, but at least you play well together.' We did, and I wouldn't ever cast aspersions on Sheringham's talent as a top-rate footballer for his clubs and country. I've just loathed him personally for 15 years."

It's a highly unusual tale. While it's not uncommon for teammates to fall out, it's extremely rare for a feud to last so long between two players who enjoyed so much success together at one of the world's biggest football clubs.

Cole: I'd Rather Have a Cuppa with Neil Ruddock

Ruddock broke Cole's leg in the 1990s

In the same column, Cole said:

"I would rather sit down and have a cuppa with Neil Ruddock, who broke my leg in two places in 1996, than with Teddy Sheringham, who I've pretty much detested for the past 15 years."

Let's be honest: it's a huge shame that Cole and Sheringham continued to hold a grudge against one another rather than shaking hands and moving on. But neither was prepared to be the bigger man, it seems, and the animosity between them continued to exist as a result.

That said, United fans will always love both players for their contributions at Old Trafford in the late-1990s and early-2000s. Together they won three Premier League titles, the FA Cup and, of course, the UEFA Champions League.

They Met in Nightclub 10 years After Retiring

Sheringham feared the worst when he saw Cole

While they were never going to become best friends, fans will be pleased to hear that the pair managed to bury the hatchet - to some extent, at least - after bumping into each other at a nightclub years after hanging up their boots.

"Probably about 10 years after we finished playing, I was in a nightclub with a couple of pals,” Sheringham told talkSPORT. "Andy was in the nightclub and I saw him walking towards me and I thought to myself, ‘He looks a little bit stern, this looks a bit naughty’.

"I just looked over his shoulder and his wife Shirley was in the background, and I could see her looking over and looking a little bit apprehensive. I thought ‘Hello, this could turn a bit nasty’, I don’t know whether he’s going to try and put one on me or what. He walked over and he said, ‘Ted look, let’s let bygones be bygones and forget about what’s happened and move on’.

"He put his hand out and I was like, ‘Wow, I did not expect that Andy’. But yeah I’m happy to do that, put my hand out and shook hands. He walked away and we’ve been okay ever since.”