Richard Cooke

Richard Cooke
Personnel
Surname	Richard Edward Cooke
birthday	4th September 1965
place of birth	Islington ,  England
position	Winger
Juniors
Years	station
	Tottenham Hotspur
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1983-1987	Tottenham Hotspur	11 0(2)
1986	→  Birmingham City  (loan)	5 0(0)
1987-1989	Bournemouth AFC	72 (15)
1989-1991	Luton Town	17 0(1)
1991-1993	Bournemouth AFC	53 0(2)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
	England U-19
1986	England U-21	1 (0)
1 Only league games are given.

Richard Edward Cooke (born September 4, 1965 in Islington ) is a retired English football player.

Club career

Cooke joined Tottenham Hotspur after graduating in 1982 and moved up to the professional squad in 1983. In the 1983/84 season, the short and fragile-looking winger, who made up for his physical disadvantages with his speed and excellent ball control, was under coach Keith Burkinshaw for the first time in competitive games for Tottenham, on his league debut, a 4-2 win against Luton Town, he put himself on the top scorer list. Under Burkinshaw's successor Peter Shreeves (1984-1986) Cooke hardly played a role and only came to two more league appearances in the 1985/86 season. The appointment of David Pleat as head coach finally sealed his departure from Tottenham. Classic wingers were not in demand in Pleats' system, which had a five-man midfield and only one striker.

After a stay on loan in the fall of 1986 at Birmingham City , he moved in the summer of 1987 for 50,000 pounds transfer fee to the second division newcomer AFC Bournemouth . Cooke developed into a top performer there and, alongside Wade Elliot and Jason Brissett, is one of the best wingers to have played at Bournemouth in recent decades. In March 1989 he moved to the first division club Luton Town, for which he made his league debut against Tottenham. He did not succeed in the episode but to assert himself at Luton and in March 1991 he returned after two years to the meanwhile in the third division AFC Bournemouth back. An injury forced him to end his career in 1993. Cooke now earns his living as a taxi driver in London .

National team

1985 Cooke was appointed by Dave Sexton in the English squad for the Junior World Championship in the Soviet Union. The poorly prepared team was eliminated after defeats against China and Mexico as well as a draw against Paraguay after the preliminary round, with Cooke playing the full distance in all three games. 1986 followed a use for the English U-21 selection in the quarter-finals of the European Championship against Denmark.

literature

• Bob Goodwin: The Spurs Alphabet - A Complete Who's Who of Tottenham Hotspur FC ACL & Polar Publishing Ltd., Leicester 1992, ISBN 0-9514862-8-4 , pp. 91 f .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ timesonline.co.uk: Top 50 Bournemouth players (Sep. 2, 2009)
2. ↑ FIFA (Ed.): Technical Report - USSR '85 . Zurich 1985, p. 44f
3. ↑ rsssf.com: England - U-21 International Results 1986-1995 - Details