Cole Mends Marriage With Help From Hello!

England may not have made it to Euro 2008, having failed to qualify ahead of the so far unimpressive Russians and Croats, but that doesn’t mean their players can’t find ways to make it into the news during the offseason. Take Chelsea’s Ashley Cole, for instance, the player whose marriage to Girls Aloud singer Cheryl has come under strain since UK tabloid revelations in January about Ashley’s poor decision-making with another woman over the course of one long and inebriated night.
 
To help rescue his marriage, Cole agreed to a desperate measure – he would voluntarily go to a Girls Aloud concert. Backstage after the gig, he was seen enjoying “an emotional reunion with his wife in a corridor,” writes Jasper Gerrard. And by whom was he seen? A photographer from Hello! magazine, the feel-good gossip rag whose presence was “all part of the healing process.”
 
“Indulging your wife’s charming belief that she can sing: can there be a more selfless demonstration that you are firmly back on the marital treadmill?” Gerrard asks. “How grateful David Beckham must be that his wife never thought of such Draconian punishments.”