Ally McCoist by Aird Alistair

Author:Aird, Alistair [Alistair Aird]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781843589457
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2011-10-08T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

COOP: 1956–95

The term ‘legend’ is frequently overused within the footballing fraternity. Too often players are decorated with the title after one act of brilliance rather than earning the tag by sustaining a high level of performance over a number of years. However, when it comes to describing the late, great Davie Cooper, the label has been well earned and there are few who would argue that the winger is, without a shadow of a doubt, a Scottish football legend. His death from a brain haemorrhage on 23 March 1995 sent shockwaves reverberating around the whole of the country. He was only thirty-nine years of age and had been winding down his successful twenty-year professional career with his first club, Clydebank, a matter of months before his untimely passing. In addition to his two spells at Kilbowie, Cooper had also enjoyed success with Motherwell in the early 1990s, but it is for his twelve-year stint with Rangers that he is best remembered.

Cooper’s Rangers adventure began in late September 1976. Jock Wallace and his Treble-winning squad were delighted when the draw for the last eight of the 1976/77 League Cup pitched them against First Division side Clydebank, with the first leg to be played at Ibrox on 22 September and the return leg scheduled for Kilbowie two weeks later. The Premier League champions were confident ahead of the tie and were made overwhelming favourites to reach the semi-finals of the tournament, with no one reckoning that the Kilbowie outfit, who were top of the First Division at the time of the tie, could prevent Rangers from forging on towards another trophy success. However, thanks to the elusive talents of their young outside-left, the Bankies gave John Greig et al an almighty fright in what developed into a marathon cup-tie.

Davie Cooper, a shy and quiet twenty-year-old from Hamilton, was initially reluctant to enter the footballing profession, preferring to remain in his job as a printer in his hometown, but Clydebank supremo Jack Steedman used his powers of persuasion and the takings from the Clydebank Social Club to convince him to join up at Kilbowie in 1975. In his first season, 1975/76, Clydebank won the Second Division title, and they were riding high at the summit of the First Division when they travelled to Ibrox for the League Cup tie. With confidence high in the Bankies’ ranks, the first-leg ‘formality’ everyone had predicted did not come to pass. Clydebank had the temerity to lead 2-1 at half-time thanks to goals from Larnach and McColl, and although Rangers rallied to lead 3-2 after the interval, a late equaliser from Cooper earned the plucky First Division visitors a 3-3 draw. They stunned Rangers in the second leg too, with Cooper again grabbing an equalising goal to cancel out the goal scored by Rangers captain John Greig. Cooper was a constant thorn in the side of the Rangers defence throughout the tie, teasing and tormenting luminaries such as Sandy Jardine, Greig, Colin Jackson and Tom Forsyth, and his guile earned Clydebank another crack at the Scottish champions.

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