What My Uncle Said - Yes Im Related To Terry Cooper - Legend

Feels like Deja Vu - We here this everytime we go and see him in Tenerife

TERRY COOPER may be enjoying his retirement on the sun-kissed Canary Islands, but despite recently celebrating his 67th birthday, he hasn’t quite yet blown out the candles regarding future involvement in the game he loves.

The Leeds United legend, who ‘retired’ in 2007 following 11 years as Southampton’s chief European scout, views footballing developments back in England from afar, his villa on the south coast of Tenerife to be precise.

Keeping an eye on United’s results is a given following his glorious association with the club during the Super Leeds years, although looking out for his lad, with his son Mark the current manager of Blue Square Premier side Darlington, taking precedence.

Cooper snr certainly has bags of managerial experience to impart to his son, having carved out a thoroughly successful niche as a lower-division gaffer, working more often than not on a shoestring budget.

Famously, the Yorkshireman played for and managed both Bristol Rovers and Bristol City and retained popularity on both sides of a football divided city – Alex McLeish and Danny Wilson take note.

He also put another West Country city more notable for rugby on the footballing map in Exeter City, taking them to the fourth division title in 1989-90 before a spell under trying circumstances at a genuine sleeping giant in Birmingham City.

And while getting his golf handicap down occupies much of his current attention over in Tenerife, helping out his boy in some capacity if he lands a plum job remains an option, despite his own advancing years.

Cooper snr, who became Britain’s first player-manager-director when he crossed the Bristol divide from Rovers to City in the summer of 1982, said: “When you are getting on, you’ve got to retire at some time. My last job involved travelling Europe and the world for Southampton, but there comes a time when you think: ‘Hang on a minute’.

“But the door is always open. My boy is at Darlington and he’s doing alright and we’ll see how he goes. If he gets a big job, I might go and help him.

“I just fell into management. When you have played football, you’ve nothing to fall back on, but thankfully when you have been a good player, you tend to get offered jobs, don’t you...?

“When I came to the end, Bristol Rovers offered me a job, even though I hadn’t any coaching badges. It was just my name that got me the job.

“It was a steep learning curve for me and I had to learn quickly. But I went on to be quite successful managing in the lower divisions and Mark’s doing okay as well.”

A sentimental father-and-son link that TV scriptwriters couldn’t have penned any better was famously in the offing back in December 2009 when non-league Kettering, then managed by Mark, were handed a dream televised FA Cup second-round home tie with his dad’s old club Leeds at Rockingham Road.

But in the build-up to that nostalgic clash, Cooper jnr was offered his break in Football League management at Peterborough United with his old man, scheduled to fly over to watch the match, cutting short his plans.

Cooper said: “I said to him it wasn’t the right time to go (to Peterborough), but he couldn’t turn it down, really. But if he’d been there against Leeds, it would have been good and I would have come over for that!”

That encounter would have been one that Cooper couldn’t really lose, given his leanings to both Leeds and the obvious family tie.

Although that remains very much the exception to the rule, with Cooper proudly partisan when it comes to most matters United.

And the iconic defender – recently voted as the club’s no.1 left-back in our Yorkshire Evening Post Leeds United Dream Team – is keeping his fingers crossed that United can make it back to their rightful place in the top-flight table in the not-too-distant future, while appreciating and empathising with the task in hand for current boss Simon Grayson, assigned with handling the expectations of a genuine footballing giant.

Cooper said: “Leeds are still always the first result I look out for. I really wanted Simon Grayson to get them in the play-offs last year and for them to come through that way.

“I think he’s done a good job there, but it’s difficult because they haven’t thrown a lot of money at it for him to get over the line.

“There’s definitely pressure at Leeds. When you think they have got a potential fanbase of 50 to 60-odd thousand and they are not in the Premier. But the managers have to be given a chance and can’t be expected to pull rabbits out of hats.

“I had the same problems at Bristol City. We were quite successful and were trying to get into what is now the Championship. The club had been bankrupt and I understand where they were coming from (in not spending excessively).

“But they just weren’t prepared to throw a little bit of money to get us over the finish line, so we could go again. I just get the impression from what I saw of Leeds last season on the television that they just lacked quality in certain positions.

“If Leeds did ever get back into the Premier Division, they would sell out every week. Who wouldn’t want to play in front of that crowd? In a nice way, they are crazy!”

Whipping supporters up into a joyous frenzy was just par for the course during United’s glory years from the mid-sixties to the mid seventies, with fans blessed to witness an intoxicating brand of football during some truly heady days.

It was Cooper – whose conversion from left winger to left-back was the stuff of legend – who famously provided the club with their first major trophy in the League Cup final of 1968 against Arsenal.

He was also a vital member of the side, under the legendary guidance of Don Revie, who lifted the first division championship for the first time in 1968-69, with international recognition with England also on the agenda for the man known affectionately as TC.

Not bad for an aspiring winger who turned up for a trial with his boots in a paper bag in 1961.

Cooper said: “I started at Ferrybridge Amateurs as a left-winger and came to Leeds as one. I think Don was looking to get a groundstaff together as they didn’t have one as such. I think they were inviting trialists to come in midweek and I think I turned up one Tuesday night.

“We played on Fullerton Park. At the time, I played against Paul Reaney, unbeknown to me.

“I must have done quite well against him and they offered me a two-year groundstaff contract. I think it was a case of right place, right time.

“My time at Leeds was just fantastic. The manager was ahead of his times with diets and massages and the like. Don was quite a clever bloke; he looked after the families – the wives and the kids – and you just trusted him.

“It was one of those...If he told you to run through a brick wall or jump in the river, you didn’t ask questions, you would get on with it.

“He made you feel special and you really wanted to play for the club and I took a lot of stuff I learnt from him into management.”

And on his goal-den hour at Wembley, he added: “It was one of those where Jack (Charlton) leapt up on the goalkeeper and the ball was headed out by Ian Ure to me and it was just of those situations....The ball drops to you 25 yards out and you hit it on the volley and it either goes into the top tier of the main stand or flies into the top corner. Luckily, for me, it just flew in, which was great – and even better for the club and it was our first (cup) trophy. It was a big day for everybody.”

Unfortunately, in the case of Cooper’s United’s career, there was the saddest of postscripts, which scores of supporters remember all too well. It arrived in the Potteries at Stoke City’s Victoria Ground – never a particularly happy venue for Leeds – in April 1972. And it’s to his lasting regret that his consummate career for club and country was cruelly savaged in its prime due to a broken leg.

Cooper, who claimed 20 caps for England – which would have been a great deal more if it hadn’t been for his cruel injury – acknowledged: “That really cocked my career up. It took so long to get my leg right, about two-and-a-half years – it was absolutely ridiculous for a break of the shin-bone...It cost me big-time because instead of having 20 England caps, I could have gone on to 80 or 90 and obviously helped Leeds to more successes.

“I got back alright, but it cost me about a yard. By then, Frankie Gray was coming through and Trevor Cherry was there. By then, Big Jack (Charlton) had gone to Middlesbrough and asked if I wanted to go and play with him (in 1975) and it was a decent move as they broke into the first division big time.

“But I’ll always remember my time at Leeds.”

 

a bloody fantastic player and person---and e ad time for supporters i spoke to him several times