Sweeping floors, driving the minibus and winning at Wembley. R.I.P. Terry Cooper, Bristol City hero

For nearly 100 years of their existence, Bristol City had trundled along like many other middling Football League clubs. A couple of promotions, a handful of relegations, the odd shot at glory and a clutch of notable former players and moments had been strewn across the century.

Then in 1976 that changed with promotion to an increasingly high-profile First Division. That story has been well told by many, with the ultimate repercussions leading to the story of the Ashton Gate Eight, men who sacrificed their future prosperity and family’s stability to ensure the very survival of our club. And most of those stories stop there. The remarkable gesture is a great ending to a story, and what came next is just seen as a gradual re-establishment to our standard jostling within the middle two divisions.

But to skip over that period of the mid-to-late 1980s would be disingenuous to a man who was front and centre of Bristol City’s recovery, a man who rebuilt the foundations on a shoestring and put the platform in place that allowed the likes of Joe Jordan, John Ward, Danny Wilson, Gary Johnson and Steve Cotterill to enjoy the successes they subsequently did.

It was a period of crumbling football grounds, with terracing that was decades old recently built upon with 10ft high fences to stop the pitch invasions and fan-fighting that had become common-place. This was before the days of the Premier League’s influence and money – which, for all its criticism, has seeped down into the lower leagues and enabled many a club to improve existing homes or build purpose-built stadia, developed training grounds and academies in a way that simply wasn’t possible in the 70s and 80s. A club without money had little way of recovering easily and had to graft and scrape together in every single facet. There were fewer than a dozen non-playing staff working at Ashton Gate as there wasn't enough cash to pay anyone else.

And so it was, that in 1982, having plummeted 70+ places down through the football league that City had a seminal moment. A young manager called Roy Hodgson had come in to steady the ship for a few months and then, at the end of the 1982 season that thankfully proved to be the low point, former Leeds, England and City left-back Terry Cooper was appointed as player-manager, very much still a thing in that era, especially, perhaps, when a club was seriously strapped for cash and a dual player/manager contract wage would have benefitted the tiny budget.

Cooper had played just a few games for City in the First Division, before moving across the city to Eastville to play and manage our blue rivals. He has since admitted he made plenty of mistakes in that spell, but given that and his affiliation with Rovers, despite the precarious financial position City were in, it was still a leap of faith to appoint Cooper.

He was still able to impact games as a player – Keiran Trigg on Twitter wrote to me with a memory of a cup win at Bristol Rovers in 1983, where he managed and also came on as sub as a 39-year old, playing a ball down the line that led to a winner for Martin Hurst. A rare moment of joy in a bleak time.

Cooper gave City was a rebase, a steely determination and he brought back belief. He also knew what he needed to do to help out, not only picking the team and coaching, as per the modern manager, but doing much of his own scouting, finding bargains, negotiating contracts with both clubs and players, meeting players families and much, much more.

A man who had played against Brazil in the 1970 World Cup for England, who had won cups with Leeds and performed for his country at Wembley was now sweeping dressing-room floors, cleaning the kit and occasionally driving the minibus. There wasn’t any money to pay for someone else to do these jobs.

He signed a series of tough, hard-working players and alongside developed the youngsters such as Rob Newman and Andy Llewellyn into permanent fixtures in the side. He negotiated the tribunal signing of Alan Walsh for just £18,000 that has become part of club folklore. Not only that, but he spent a weekend helping him move from the North East to the Westcountry! He persuaded good players to come and play for a club who couldn’t afford much by way of a wage, playing in the bottom tier based purely on his charisma, character and enthusiasm. He made sure they knew they’d enjoy their football and could be a part of something good.

Promotion came relatively quickly, considering the financial state of the club, in 1984 as City finished in fourth place in the pre play-off days and went up along with his old Leeds United mate Billy Bremner’s Doncaster Rovers.

Two seasons later came Cooper’s crowning glory. The Freight Rover Trophy, as it was then, was a brand new competition and play-off finals were but a glint in the eye of a Football League Executive, so lower league clubs just didn’t play at Wembley very often. After a 2-0 defeat at Hereford in the first leg of a semi-final had seemingly ruined our chances of our first ever appearance underneath the Twin Towers, Cooper masterminded a 3-0 win in the return leg to reach the final and trigger scenes of elation on the pitch. That felt to many like the moment that ‘City were back’ – back mixing it in big games, back on the scene.

Reaching Wembley was an achievement in itself. Beating Bolton Wanderers 3-0 in the Final in front of 30,000 jubilant fans (we had averaged fewer than 5,000 in Division 4) was simply something else. It was the foundation for what has followed in the subsequent 35 years – without Terry Cooper, without that promotion, without that team he built, who knows how long we might have floundered in the bottom rung and the long-term impact that might have had.

There was no tea-cup throwing with TC. Walsh, speaking on Radio Bristol’s Sound of the City on Monday evening, said he couldn’t really remember him losing his temper. The team was hard but respectful, honest and hard-working, but with no little flair.

Keith Waugh posted on Twitter (@blackcatkw) saying Cooper was the best manager he ever worked for, was a superb man manager and a top bloke.

Another fan, Dean Allen, revealed the kind side to him too, explaining how he received a hand-written letter back having written to him as a young boy. Touches like that aren’t commonplace and mean a lot to everyone.

The year after our Trophy success we reached Wembley yet again in the same competition. 90 years without a single appearance and we had two trips there in two years! On this occasion we succumbed to a penalty shoot-out defeat, but it was a measure of the man that Cooper let Clive Middlemass, his erstwhile assistant, lead the team out that day to have the moment he deserved – the reward for years of toil and graft alongside him.

It's easy to reflect in these moments on all the good points and forget the bad, but every account I've heard of Terry Cooper, from both sides of Bristol, within the club, from outside the club, from Leeds and further afield has been entirely positive. A warm, friendly man who made others feel comfortable and had a laugh with anyone he'd speak with.

When he was City manager, Terry Cooper often talked about his wishes to one day having a proper training ground that we could call home. His passing in the year that the new training facility has opened feels somewhat poignant and, as a few have suggested, it would be a lovely touch to name the venue after a man who must go down as one of the best, and also most important managers in City’s history.

I’ll finish with his words after winning at Wembley in 1986. City’s first ever Wembley appearance, when he was interviewed in tears on the pitch long after the game had finished. 

"I’ve never been like this before, even when playing for England. It’s been the best day of my life. It’s our team”

That’s how much City meant to Terry Cooper. He had scored the winner in a cup final at Wembley as a player. He’d played in a World Cup for England. But this was his team, the club he'd rebuilt from the scrapyard. In 1986 he was naturally a hero to the fans. 35 years on he is remembered by everyone and remains a hero to all at Ashton Gate, and that's the mark of the man. 

Rest in Peace, Terry Cooper.