While recovering from a heart attack a year ago Neale Cooper spoke of the “scary feeling“ of having thought he would be the first to die from Aberdeen’s finest team, which defeated Real Madrid on a rain-lashed night in Gothenburg to lift the European Cup-Winners’ Cup in 1983.
Cooper, who was just 20 when he helped the future Sir Alex Ferguson land his first European trophy, has died at the age of 54 after a fall near his Aberdeen home. A statement from his first club acknowledged that he was, after all, “the first of the Gothenburg Greats to tragically pass away”.
Born in Darjeeling, India, where his father managed a tea plantation, Cooper spoke only Hindi when he attended primary school in Aberdeen after the family’s return. He excelled at football, being recommended by the school janitor to Aberdeen when he was seven. The club he supported swiftly became the one he represented.
At 14 Cooper was manning the engine room for the Dons’ reserves. By 1979, aged 16, he was blooded in the first team by Ferguson. He and Neil Simpson were the midfield enforcers as Aberdeen disrupted the dominance of Glasgow’s Old Firm over the next five seasons; he famously fouled Celtic’s Charlie Nicholas four seconds after kick-off.
By the time he was 23 he had won two Scottish League winner’s medals, four Scottish Cups and one League Cup, not to mention the Cup-Winners’ Cup and Uefa Super Cup. He also earned 13 caps for Scotland Under-21s.
Ferguson regarded the young, free and single Cooper with affection but also suspicion, sometimes with good reason. After the manager learned he had breached a curfew by drinking in a disco, Cooper was fined. When he scored in the next match he could not resist a celebratory Michael Jackson moonwalk before Aberdeen's dugout.
Like Ferguson, Cooper headed for England in 1986, with less auspicious results. He joined Aston Villa in the old Second Division but although he was part of the squad which achieved promotion in 1987-88, injuries meant he made only made only 20 appearances for Villa.
Fitness issues ensured a similarly staccato sojourn with Rangers. A game against Aberdeen in which he scored an outstanding goal – and received a volley of abuse after entering the wrong dressing-room at half-time “out of habit” – was one of only 17 he played for the Ibrox club.
Brief stints with Reading and back at Aberdeen bookended five years playing for Dunfermline before Cooper became player-manager of Ross County in 1996. He secured successive promotions before taking the manager’s job at Hartlepool, where his feat in steering the serial under-achievers into the play-offs meant he was rated their most successful manager since Brian Clough.
He also served Gillingham and Peterhead before a second spell at Hartlepool.
Cooper had one son and two daughters from a marriage which ended in divorce. One of them, Alex, 26, spent four years with Liverpool, reaching reserve level, before his release in 2011. He now plays for Fresno in California.
Neale Cooper, born 24 November 1963, died 28 May 2018
