A Personal Tribute to Stevie Cooper
By Allstars #9
February 20 2004
A brief Tribute To the Late Stevie Cooper, these are my own favourite memories of the Big man and a little about his Airdrie career.
What can I say about Stevie Cooper that hasn’t been said already, Born in Birmingham on the 22/6/64 Stephen Cooper was to go on and achieve cult hero status with all the clubs he played for. Not a prolific Goalscorer but what he lacked in goals he more than made up for in effort and character.
Steve started his football career at Halifax in 1983 before moving to home City team Birmingham, spells at Newport County, Plymouth and Barnsley followed before Steve Joined Tranmere in December 1990, here he enjoyed a bit of success scoring in Tranmere’s play off semi Final against Brentford and played in the 1-0 win over Bolton in the Final.
Loan spells at Peterbourgh and Wigan preceded a move to York City where he played for a season before moving north to Airdrie where he was to spend 5 great years with the diamonds.
Signed at the start of the 1994-95 season it wasn’t until 5th October Stevie netted his first Diamonds Goal in a 2-0 win over Ayr in the B&Q cup which Airdrie went on to lift in a 3-2 win over Dundee. This was to start an amazing cup year for The Diamond’s as Coop’s scored in the league cup semi final against Raith Rovers only to lose out on penalty kicks to the eventual winners. Revenge was to come though as Raith were dumped in the quarter final of the Scottish cup 4-1 at Starks park to set up another Semi Final (the third of the season) against premier league Hearts.
This was to be Stevie’s finest moment in the Diamond, In a tight match in front of 22,500 fans Coops settled it in the first half rising head and shoulders above Willie Jamieson to head Airdrie in to there Fourth Scottish cup final and send the Airdrie fans wild, indeed on a personal note a bit too much celebration saw me spend the second half in the hampden police cells!!
Disappointment followed though as Airdrie went on to lose to a drab Celtic team 1-0 in the final. All in all though a very successful start to his Diamonds career scoring 16 goals and reaching 2 finals and a semi final.
The following season saw Steve’s appearances limited with injuries but at the start of the season he notched against East fife in the league cup which helped the Diamonds on there way to yet another semi final which again at a rainy McDiarmid park we lost this time to Dundee and Neil McCann’s flukey last minute winner. Only 5 more goals followed that season in which Airdrie finished a disappointing 8th.
Season 96-97 was to prove a strange one for Airdrie and Stevie in particular. His 8 league goals including 4 against Falkirk in the space of two weeks helped Airdrie to reach the play off in which they would face Hibs , in the first leg at Easter road Coops was unfortunate to put the ball in his own net while trying to help out in defence in a 1-0 loss. More drama was to come in the second leg at Broadwood after Airdrie took an early lead Coops stepped forward to take a penalty which would have given Airdrie a 2-1 lead overall in the tie, after a short run up the ball smacked the crossbar and the chance had gone as hibs went on to win 4-2 on the night
97/98 saw Stevie return to a bit of goal scoring form notching 14 for the season including a brilliant Hat-trick against Hamilton at broadwood. But again in a fairly strong league Airdrie finished 4th 10 points behind winners Dundee.
The next season was to be Stevie’s last at Airdrie. Everything looked set for a great season when Airdire returned to the town and a new stadium, it was also this season that I saw a side of stevie which made me admire him more so, at a rain sodden Stair park Stranraer had took the lead in the game, when after an Airdrie attack had broken down we tried to encourage coops with a shout of Come on big man I’ve got 2-1 on my coupon, minutes later and Stevie had equalized and with an outstretched hand and running back to the halfway line grinning he was onto halfers, he never came looking for his share though after Marvyn had hit the winner.
Steve’s final season was also hampered by injury and he grabbed 9 in total for that season, indeed after being freed by Gary McKay he joined Ayr but never saw first team action and eventually retired through injury
A great servant to Airdrie and I’m sure Stevie looked back on Airdrie as being his finest and most successful spell as a professional footballer, my heartfelt sympathies go to his Wife and Children, Stevie will always be remembered by us all for his 100% commitment and effort to the cause Rest In Peace Cooperman
