Cheryl Cole meets ex on the quiet: report

Ashley is believed to have got in touch after watching Cheryl talk positively about their marriage – which ended when reports surfaced he had been unfaithful – when she appeared on Piers Morgan's Life Stories.

'The key thing that led to contact being restored was the interview,' the insider told the News of the World.

'Ashley had been absolutely dreading it. He'd feared another bucketload of shit after all the media criticism of him. But Cheryl only spoke of love and tenderness. She couldn't have been nicer.'

He is said to have called her asking for tickets for the National Television Awards last Wednesday, and asked her to meet him after the ceremony.

'He has been getting some positive signals from Cheryl and has been responding to them,” the source added. 'He called her from the training ground and she told him she was going and he wanted tickets. He said he'd be discreet and make sure they weren't pictured together - and then they could meet somewhere private afterwards. They talked for 10 minutes. It was obvious from his reaction she was unsure - but only because she was worried they'd be pictured. She wasn't against the idea of meeting.'

A friend of Cheryl’s added that any reconciliation with Ashley would be 'career suicide' for Cheryl, who is about to embark on a career in the US.