Football firsts
Former Nottingham Forest midfielder Chris Cohen talks us through his football memories
First game you watched live?
Norwich City against… someone. I was born in Norwich but didn’t live there for very long. My mum took me and my brother back to see our first ever house, and while we were there she took us to a match. It must have been 29 or 30 years ago, the team of Ruel Fox, Chris Sutton, Bryan Gunn in goal. They were my team until the age of about eight, when I started supporting West Ham.
First football hero?
Alan Shearer, Teddy Sheringham, Stuart Pearce, Gazza - I could pick any one of the Euro 96 team. That tournament is my first memory of football and it was the first time I thought ‘Yeah, I want to be like one of these guys’. From a club point of view,
I’d say Roy Keane at Manchester United.
First football boots?
The first ones I can remember would be either a pair of Adidas World Cups or a pair of Umbro Specialis. Very much the cheapest ones that were available at the time. It was just before the flairy boots came out with all the different colours, when every kid wore black and white.
First kit?
The first one I can remember was a kind of blue chequered Norwich away kit, when they were sponsored by the Norwich & Peterborough Building Society.
It looked like a dishcloth to be fair, the kind that you dry the pans with! Objectively, it was really bad but I didn’t care - I loved it.
First professional game?
For West Ham at home to Sunderland in 2003. I was 16, still getting the train in.
I’d been a ballboy six weeks before, and I played every level in the space of about a month - Under-17s, Under-19s, reserves, then Alan Pardew gave me my debut in the Championship.
I came on at left wing-back for Matthew Etherington when it was 2-2, and to this day I can’t understand why. I’ve never been the sort of player you’d throw on to try and win you a game!
But we ended up winning 3-2 and it was a really proud moment. I was the youngest person to play for West Ham for 80 years and all my family were there.
First professional goal?
For Yeovil Town, who I’d joined on loan from West Ham, in a 4-0 win over Gillingham. I think it was a deflected shot, which goes along with pretty much every goal I scored in my career!
First red card?
I’ll never forget this one. It was for West Ham against Burnley and – name drop – Teddy Sheringham pulled me aside as I went on.
He said to me ‘I expect you to have a shot and make a big tackle’. I went on, took a shot pretty much straight away and that went into the stand. Then I made an absolutely horrendous challenge. It was more enthusiasm than malice, but I completely smashed someone on the halfway line and got a straight red card about 20 minutes after coming on. I actually said to Teddy in the shower afterwards ‘Well, I did what you told me!’.