GENIUS COOP REMEMBERED
Paterson: I played with George and he was incredible – but Coop trumped even that
CRAIG PATERSON played with one of the legends of the world game but reckons Davie Cooper was Simply The Best.
Better than all the rest ... including George Best.
Paterson rubbed shoulders with Best at Hibs.
He saw the Manchester United icon up close and then saw him eclipsed when Paterson moved to Rangers and Motherwell, playing alongside Cooper, who passed away 25 years ago today.
Cooper, aged just 39, was conducting a coaching session at Clyde’s Broadwood Stadium when he suffered a brain haemorrhage. His death sent shockwaves through world football and a quarter of a century on the players who knew and played with him still feel his loss deeply.
Paterson said: “Davie was the best player I ever played with. He had something special.
“He was a player who could do things others couldn’t. Davie was that one-in-a-generation player who could do things you had never seen done with a ball before. He had the sort of skills where you would go ‘wow’ and remember it for weeks.
“I played with George Best at Hibs who was a fantastic talent. He was 33 or whatever then and maybe wasn’t the same George Best of his vintage, when he ran Benfica ragged in 1968, but he still had unbelievable ability.
“Some players just have that something special and George had it and believe me so did Davie Cooper. ‘Coop’ had something extra.
“George is always going to be up there in the top five or 10 best players ever, depending on who you ask. He had it and there was even more of that in Davie. Davie and George could both do things other players just couldn’t do.”
Dutch superstar Ruud Gullit put Cooper in his all-time starting XI and Paterson knows it was down to his ability to tie opposition defences in knots.
Paterson said: “He scored a goal against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park which was one of the best I have seen. He must have beaten about six players before he stuck the ball in the net.
“Jim Clark, the Kilmarnock defender, still jokes about it. He laughed and said, ‘I think he beat me twice – on the halfway line and then I managed to get back in the queue and he did me again at the edge of the box’.
“The only disappointing thing was that game wasn’t televised and everybody could see the goal. It was an absolute wonder goal.”
Paterson, who roomed with the 22-times capped winger, says Cooper had a free-kick trick that would amaze his team-mates.
He said: At Rangers we went out to Lyon for a four-team tournament after the 1982 World Cup. We played St Etienne and Coops used to take all the free-kicks and corners.
“He asked, ‘Do you prefer the writing on the ball up or down when it comes towards you?’ I looked at him and he said, ‘Do you want the letters facing you or away from you?’ I thought he was joking until he started to put the ball into the box. He wasn’t!”
Cooper is a legend with the Ibrox faithful and was a major go-to man for bosses like John Greig and Jock Wallace. He also delivered in big moments for Scotland and Motherwell.
“Coop was never up or down,” Paterson said. “The bigger the game the better and that was why he relished the Old Firm game. When I played with him it was always get the ball to him as quickly as you can and then let him go and do his stuff.
“I always felt Coop and Bobby Russell had this telepathic understanding. They could see things others couldn’t and seemed to know what each other was going to do. It made them a fantastic partnership and the Rangers fans loved them.”
Cooper left for Motherwell and helped put the club back on the map. Paterson had already made the same move and is in no doubt the wideman was the catalyst to Motherwell’s 1991 Scottish Cup win. He said: “When I was at Motherwell it was about staying in the league but when we got Coop I thought wow! I felt we could go to the next level with the signing of a genius like Coop and so it proved.
“We went from a workmanlike side to a team who on our day could beat anyone as we then showed on May 18, 1991 as we lifted the Scottish Cup.
“He was a major influence on that cup run and without him I am not sure we would have won the Cup.
“That £50,000 they paid has to be the best money they have ever spent. To buy Cooper for that sort of fee was an absolute steal.”
He may have been in the twilight of his career at Motherwell but the quality was still there for all to see.
Paterson said: “I remember we went a goal down to Dundee United and then we had a man sent off.
“But then Coop just took the game by the scruff of the neck. He went on a run, got fouled in the box, picked himself up to equalise from the spot.
“Davie goes at it again. He runs forward and threads the ball through David Narey’s legs and Dougie Arnott smashed it home.
“I was at the other end of the pitch and the opposition striker would regularly turn to me and ask, ‘How did he do that?’ I’d say I’ve been watching him for seven years and I have no idea!”
I thought Davie was joking until he started to put the ball into the box. He wasn’t!
CRAIG PATERSON