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The following article appeared in The Ross-shire Journal in their preview of the 1998-99 Season. The interviwer is Willie Wilson (WW) and he puts his questions to Neale Cooper (NC).
Neale Cooper's first move into management has not been easy as he attempts to gain promotion for Ross County from Division Three.
It could be third time lucky for Neale, but he doesn't seem to believe in luck and would prefer to be able to rely on the skill and playing ability of his first team squad to take the club up in this coming season.
In this interview Neale gives us an insight into his thoughts on the coming season and who he thinks will cause County problems in their push for promotion.
WW: How significant was the loss of Billy Ferries for the whole of last season?
NC:An in-form Billy Ferries is an asset to any team and we were no different. He is the type of player that can win you games, by his jinking runs and quality ball into the box. Last season we did not have the people delivering a quality ball into the box regularly enough.
And it could also be said that if there was a quality ball going into the box, we sometimes did not have the people to get on to the end of the cross.
So Billy was missed but we did see the emergence of Connor Campbell and likewise young Neil Tarrant showed us towards the end of the season that he is also a fine prospect
WW: Where do you think that things went wrong last season?
NC: Too many draws and points lost in our home games. It really is as simple as that. There seemed to be a problem in the players expressing themselves on the park and I was disappointed at some of the players' attitude. We had a good run in the Scottish Cup and the players at that time showed us all a standard of play against higher division opposition which was very pleasing.
However we seemed to lose the plot after this and our cup run dramatically affected our league form and the players were struggling to raise their game at a critical stage for us in the season.
I was always an honest player willing to fight for the cause and could not accept anything less than 100% from the players around me. I therefore found it difficult to sit (or stand) and watch players not give that commitment and, alongside this, not play to our gameplan.
I know people think it would be best to stick with a settled side. However, we did face many injuries and suspensions over the season and while I would never put this forward as an excuse, it did mean me altering the team and shifting players around to maintain our overall shape as a team.
WW: Do you feel comfortable with the squad of players you have now and will they be strong enough to bring Ross County promotion?
NC: Nicky Walker has made a tremendous difference since his arrival from Aberdeen and it was very important that we got him fixed up. He is a model professional and a pleasure to work with. His influence is there for all to see within the games and apart from his general goalkeeping ability, he is a very good organiser and motivator and will be a key player for this season.
David Ross is a north lad who needs little introduction. He is 6"3' tall and is a player who will work his socks off for the club and is comfortable playing in different roles. He did well during his spell on loan to us at the end of last season and we were delighted when he agreed to join us. Again he is experienced and a good influence within the dressing room.
Ian Maxwell is a left-sided central defender and impressed us when we played Queen's Park last season. Again, he is over 6 feet tall and is a strong defender, but also very comfortable with the ball at his feet.
Murray Hunter caught our eye when we played against East Stirlingshire. He is strong in the air and is some 6"2' which gives us that presence up front we maybe were lacking last season. He is needing a few more games with our players to fit into our system, but I am sure he will be a great asset to us.
Importantly, both Dave McKay and David Matheson agreed to sign new contracts, pledging themselves to the club. Dave McKay showed himself to be one of the best defenders in the league last season and his overall play improved as the season progressed. David Matheson was not a first team regular, but when called upon gave his all for us and he is a tremendous man-marker. He certainly showed us enough to warrant a new contract and he will be pushing hard for a place this season.
WW: Is the manager looking to change his style of management, perhaps becoming more relaxed?
NC: I really did feel that we had a team last season that could win us the league, never mind promotion.
I therefore became more and more frustrated in watching the team not performing to my wishes, or indeed to the kind of form that I knew they could produce.
I just cannot accept sloppy performance and lack of effort from players I coach and manage and this really started to get through to me. So much so, it was beginning to affect my home life and family and this simply was just not on. I took a week or so outwith my family and talked to many of my friends in the game and decided to come back and try my hardest to relax a little. I just had to stop kicking every ball which I think I was doing and it wasn't doing the players, my family or myself any good.
To date it seems to have worked and I am trying very hard to keep my emotions under control. But it isn't easy.
WW: Are you happy with the pre-season build-up and who do you think will provide the main opposition this season?
NC: The players came back to pre-season training looking very good indeed. They all seemed to have taken care of themselves over the summer break and there was a feeling of good team spirit and a mission - following the disappointment of last season - for them to really go for it this time.
Many of our full-time players and our new Skillseekers went through their SFA C Grade Certificate right at the start of the pre-season and this was a great way for them to get their fitness up and also to appreciate the importance of the various drills we work on throughout the season.
We seem to be relatively injury free and the pitch is looking very good. So, once again, we go into this season full of hope and confidence that we can pull off the promotion we all want for the club. The additional players give us that extra bit of presence we maybe lacked at times last season and once again teams will not relish coming to Victoria Park Stadium.
As far as opposition goes, I suppose you must look at the likes of Stenhousemuir, having just taken the drop, to be looking for a quick return to the Second Division. And the likes of Berwick Rangers will not be easy. Craig Levein worked hard at Cowdenbeath when he went in last year and they could be a dark horse within the promotion race. However, with the mood in our camp at the moment, I do feel we will be looking to make amends and ridding ourselves of that bridesmaid tag we have had over the last three seasons, by looking positive in our minds and play to gain us promotion this season.
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This article appeared in the Scotland on Sunday on the 3rd January and was written by Alasdair Fraser.
The comedian Eddie Izzard has a line about the childhood wisdom in telling "big kids with sticks" he was actually a transvestite.
Neale Cooper's version was convincing his Aberdeen classmates that his birthplace - Darjeeling in India - was nothing to scoff at, but a "wee fishing village just outside Peterhead".
As managers like Alex Ferguson, Graeme Souness and Bert Paton have discovered to their cost, Cooper never lost that boyish sense of mischief - or his uncanny ability to mimic the gaffer.
Incurably one of the lads, contempories like Alex McLeish and Mark McGhee have since marvelled at his progression to just such a seat of responsibility.
Now, at the age of 35, a deeply serious side has pervaded Cooper's affable nature and trademark giggle. Triumph and heartbreak filled his first two and a half years in charge of third division Ross County, not to mention a near nervous breakdown last season.
After bad results, Cooper can sometimes appear a tortured man, sitting alone in the stand staring out as if replaying all the action in his mind.
Still, the sense of fun lingers. Only a fortnight ago, he was asked by one earnest reporter if a healthy eight point gap at the top of the table would be his ideal present at Christmas.
"No," came the dead-pan reply, "That would be a Sony PlayStation."
Ross County's decsion, made earlier this week, to extend Cooper's contract by two years, does not, on the face of it, seem particularly significant. In an era where a club like Aberdeen sheds managers like the seasons, loyalty is at a premium even where contracts exist.
But for observers closer to County, the move and its timing is a supreme declaration of confidence by the Highland club's board. Cooper has failed by the narrowest of margins to lift his side out of the basement division, as did Bobby Wilson in the two seasons before him. Yet everything about Ross County is geared towards first division football.
Popular wisdom had it that Cooper was drinking in the "last chance saloon" this season, while more positive rumours had it that he would be lured away to join the Pittodrie coaching staff.
It was Cooper's great mentor Alex Ferguson who thrived after a show of loyalty in adversity by Manchester United chairman Martin Edwards. And although reluctant to bow to such lofty allusions, County chairman Roy McGregor admits there are similarities with this latest vote of confidence.
McGregor said, "Neale is a young manager with rough edges, but we believe he has a great deal of ability and potential. All his life he has been a footballer and, in a way, he has had to grow up quickly in this new role. If he delivers what we need and have set out to achieve, which is first division football within three years, he will more than likely be snapped up by a bigger club. So in one sense we are in a win-win situation.
"We decided we wanted continuity and we are showing faith, not only in Neale but in the structure we have set in place here."
Achieving first division football within three years might seem, to some, a touch ambitious for a club located in a town of less than 10,000 people, in the heart of farming country, and only a decade ago were languishing at the foot of the Highland League.
There is, though, concrete evidence to back McGregor's vision: a £1.2 million stand and hospitality suite where once only a dingy old shed stood; the state-of-the-art training facilities; and, a youth coaching structure acknowledged to be amongst the front runners in the country. The troubles of the past year, in which heavy losses were reported and promotion slipped away, now seem distant in Dingwall.
McGregor stressed: "Our debt is vitually eliminated now. We are riding high in division three and, being almost debt-free, we are now able to concentrate fully on the playing side.
"Allowing Neale to sign an experienced player like John McGlashan from Dundee was really done with a second division promotion campaign in mind and more will follow.
"We are looking for a bedding-in period in division three fora new, strengthened sqaud capable of challenging for division one. We are taking nothing for granted this season - it's a tough league - but we have confidence in our three-year plan."
Neighbours Inverness Caledonian Thistle chose to invest in the playing side alongside ground improvements - a policy which has lifted them more rapidly into division two but culminated in losses around £1.4 million announced recently.
McGregor, while refusing to draw comparisons, believes County have laid sturdy foundations for success.
He added, "The playing side has not been entirely neglected in our first few years, but we felt we should pump all resources into the infrastructure and the youth coaching structures first.
"The rest can now follow naturally as everything else is in place to first division standards or better.
"I think many people within the SFA will now tell you that we are leading the way in terms of our youth structure and we are the first club in Scotland with two full-time SFA community officers."
Local business, club abd sports council investment has meanwhile created a budget of over £100,000 for County's youth development regime, covering every school in Ross-shire and ten outlying Highland soccer schools. County this season took the ground-breaking step of recruiting a women's football coach to oversee another priority are for development.
The aim, now, is to catapult the first youth products into the first team squad, while doubling the number of full-time players from six to twelve next season.
County, though, will always look south for players. McGregor added, "Neale Cooper has tremendous contacts in the south, as well as huge respect from his associates in the game.
"He was short-listed for the Scotland Under-21 coaching post, helped Craig Brown with scouting for France 98 and even Alex Ferguson speaks to him fortnightly.
"One of my proudest moments in football was the League Cup match at Tynecastle after beating Morton and Dundee United when Neale's influence on the team showed through.
"It was not just the result, but the way we matched them and held possession so comfortabley for so long.
"I think if anyone wants a marker as to what we are trying to achieve, then that evening, against Premier opposition, encapsulates it."
And of that, both Cooper and McGregor are deadly serious.
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