Bio:
Paul Cooper, played as a goalkeeper. He made more than 500 appearances in the Football League, most of them for Ipswich Town, where he won the 1978 FA Cup and the 1981 UEFA Cup and also gained a reputation for saving penalties. With 575 appearances for Ipswich, he is ranked fourth in the club’s all-time appearances list.
Ipswich manager Bobby Robson signed Paul Cooper on loan in March 1974. Cooper initially played in the reserves, making his debut against Arsenal reserves on 16 March. After four more matches in the reserves, he made his Ipswich first team debut on 20 April in a 3–2 defeat at Leeds United, Ipswich’s penultimate game of the season. First team goalkeeper Laurie Sivell returned for Ipswich’s final league match of the season, but Cooper was signed on a permanent contract in June 1974 for a fee of £23,000.
In his first full season, Paul Cooper only played two games in the league, one of which was against former club Birmingham. He spent most of the season in the reserves, where he and the club’s other reserve goalkeeper David McKellar played 20 matches each.
The 1975–76 season saw Cooper make his breakthrough. After Ipswich lost their first league match 3–0 at home to Newcastle United, Cooper replaced Sivell in the team and went on to play in 40 of Ipswich’s 42 league matches that season. He made his debut in European football on 17 September 1975 as Ipswich won 2–1 at Feyenoord and continued as first choice goalkeeper in 1976–77, making 34 league appearances as Ipswich finished third in the league, with Sivell deputising for the remaining eight games. At the end of the season Robson attempted to sign Tottenham goalkeeper Pat Jennings, but an injury to Trevor Whymark meant he was forced to sign an outfield player instead. In 1977–78 Cooper played in 40 of the club’s 42 league matches, and although Ipswich had their worst season in the league since 1970–71, finishing eighteenth, they reached the FA Cup final for the first time in their history. Cooper missed the league match a week before the final with a back injury and was replaced by Paul Overton, who, in his only appearance for Ipswich, conceded six goals as Town lost 6–1 to Aston Villa. Cooper returned for the final and kept a clean sheet as Ipswich won 1–0, the club’s first major honour since winning the First Division in 1961–62. At the time Cooper was developing a reputation for saving penalties; the following season he played in all but one of Ipswich’s league games, saving five of the seven penalties he faced. He made 40 league appearances in 1979–80 (with Sivell playing in the other two games), saving eight of out of ten penalties, the most ever saved by a goalkeeper in a season.
In 1980–81 Cooper made 61 appearances as Ipswich reached the League Cup fourth round, the semi-finals of the FA Cup and the final of the UEFA Cup, in which they defeated AZ Alkmaar 5–4 on aggregate to win the club’s first European trophy. However, they missed out on the league title after losing seven of their last ten matches, something that Cooper has said is the only disappointment of his career. At the end of the 1980–81 season Cooper was named Player of the Year by Ipswich supporters. During this time, Cooper was the only regular first team member at Ipswich not to play for his country, although he was considered unlucky not to do so, facing competition from Peter Shilton and Ray Clemence. In 1981, he was also one of several Ipswich players to appear in the film Escape to Victory, with Cooper used as a stand-in for Sylvester Stallone, whose character played in goal. The following season saw Ipswich finish as league runners-up for a second consecutive season, although Cooper missed 10 league games, Sivell playing in nine and John Jackson making his only Ipswich appearance in the other. After Robson left to manage England in 1982, his assistant Bobby Ferguson took over as manager. Ipswich finished only ninth in 1982–83, with Cooper playing in 35 league matches and Sivell in the remaining seven.[27] He made 36 league appearances in 1983–84 as Ipswich finished twelfth; Sivell, in his final season at Ipswich,[28] played in the other six games. Cooper played 36 league games again the following season, with Ipswich slumping to seventeenth as the 1981 team began to break up. Mark Grew, a £60,000 signing in March 1984, played the remaining six matches. In 1985–86 Cooper was still first choice goalkeeper, with Grew going out on loan and Jon Hallworth standing in for Cooper in six league games. Ipswich were relegated to Division Two at the end of the season, but Cooper stayed at the club and made 36 league appearances as the club qualified for the promotion playoffs in their first season in Division Two. Cooper saved a penalty in the first leg against Charlton as the match ended 0–0, but Ipswich lost 2–1 in the away leg. One of the last members of the Robson-era team still at the club, he left Ipswich on a free transfer in June 1987 and signed for Second Division Leicester City, who were managed by former Ipswich teammate Bryan Hamilton.
Factfile:
- Full Name: Paul David Cooper
- Position: Goalkeeper
- Date of Birth: 21.12.1953
- Birthplace: Cannock
- Nation: England
- Caps: –
- Goals: –
- Club Career: Ipswich Town
- Period: 1974-1987
- League Games, 446
- League Goals, –
- Previous Club: Birmingham City
- Transfer Fee: £23.000
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