Yup, did mine.

Not read it yet, but from the snippets in the paper it sounds like the board at the time were pi** poor. Ewan Dowes tweeted and asked if he wrote in the book where Hull got their 06 grand final suits from. Asda was the answer!!! The stuff flying around on twitter from Hull fans to Cooke himself seems to be all sorry's and "we understand why you left"

Asda sounds about right for penny pinching kath

Great read and yes i can fully understand why he left.Gives some great insight into former coaches and players well worth the money

Half way through it.

I don't know if the serialisations published have covered the reasons for his leaving but basically he didn't sign his contract because he was waiting on an assurance from the Club that would apply to the RFL for his testimonial. The letter he requested never came and therefore he didn't sign the contract; this was the root cause of the resentment between him and the Club. The testimonial couldn't be written into the contract because then it would be liable for income tax and Cooke and his father (who acted as his agent) were adamant on requiring this 'letter of comfort' I think they called it.

It is interesting what he says about John Kear. Kearney, when he left, wrote an appraisal of the Club and that was pretty damning on the state of the club and player development. According to Cooke, Kearney said that players were pretty much left to get on with it and that he and Horney needed specialist coaching to develop their game which they just didn't receive.

Coming to a Charity Shop bargain bin very soon!

Don't think the fans would have been so annoyed if he had left at the end of the season,and then we had our local championship team owner rubbing our noses in it.But with what's happened at the weekend there is a god after all.

No matter what, that try at Cardiff will always be in my memory. Personally I can`t see the point of carrying on a grudge.

Great player who loved his own hype,i'll always remember the try that Danny Houghton stopped at Wembley.Two great players but Danny has got the respect of all his fellow players hence the man of steel.Cookey could have had so much more but he wasted his career.

Didn't we pretty much know this anyway (re. his departure from FC)? The relationship between Cooke & the Club collapsed due to issues with the testimonial, and Cooke thought having not signed his contract that he could walk away, and he did.

I don't begrudge his reasons for leaving, he'd lost trust in his employers and felt he was being/had been screwed over regarding a testimonial. I'd also feel a bit mift I think.

But, it's the manner in which he left that hurt us fans; engineering his own move to our arch enemy, doing it mid-season, abruptly, leaving us up sh!1 creek without a playmaker and at the time our best player. The side was built around him, and we as fans & a club had stood by him through various misdemeanours and had invested an awful lot into him over the years.

I don't think Cooke thought about the fans at the time, which I can understand. His priority was to get out of the club, away from the management and not hang about in doing so. May be with hindsight he'd still have made the same decision to leave us, but have done it in a different way, who knows? I don't feel any bitterness towards him now, he's apologised to the fans and I've accepted it.

Good reply,your probably right,onwards and upwards.

Not read the book but wasn't the issue around Paul King's testimonial also, I think it would have clashed with Cookies?

Pretty much sums up my entire thoughts. Always remember my rovers mate ringing me telling me was going round the crowd lording it up and shaking their hands

Have you seen the footage of him in Crown singing "Old Faithful,you'll never win at wembley"?

Up until this year he's been the most influential player in the city since the SL era. However he's now been eclipsed in folklore terms by Houghton IMO, who has not only also collected Man of Steel but is pure and genuine humility and selfless, relentless effort, and has thoroughly earned a rich testimonial. Cooke gave us some fabulous moments but does seem to enjoy being queen of his own soap opera.