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Topics: Nottingham Forest, Premier League
Chris Byfield
Steve Cooper was once reportedly left “furious” by a joke from former Nottingham Forest chairman Nicholas Randall.
On Wednesday, Forest appointed Nuno Espirito Santo on a two-and-a-half-year deal to replace Cooper.
The Welshman was sacked a day earlier after two years in charge of the club, having lost five of his past six league games.
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The former England U17s manager took over at Forest in September 2021, when the club were rooted at the bottom of the Championship.
He went on to lead them to playoff success, beating Huddersfield at Wembley in the final before securing the club’s Premier League survival the following campaign despite an enormous turnover of players.
However, the relationship between Cooper and the club’s hierarchy had allegedly been going sour for a while.
According to the Athletic, in the summer Cooper became angry at club chairman Randall for a joke he made at the club’s pre-season kit launch for fans, sponsors and assorted guests at Nottingham Castle.
Randall gave a speech in which he started by jocularly referring to what Cooper was wearing, a gag the Forest boss was reportedly able to laugh off.
However, the publication claims Cooper became furious when Randall used club captain Joe Worrall as the target for a cheap joke.
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Worrall, Randall explained, had spent part of his childhood wanting to be a professional cricketer. As per the Athletic, the punchline of the story had words to the effect of, “And halfway through last season, we all wished he had been a professional cricketer, too.”
Worrall was said to be unimpressed while Cooper allegedly thought his captain had been publicly humiliated and saw it as “a kick in the teeth” for himself, the player and all his coaching staff.
Randall’s comments reportedly went down so badly that there were people at the club who talked about not wanting the chairman on the same plane as the players for a pre-season game against Eintracht Frankfurt.
In the end, Randall was said to have been informed there were not enough seats on the flight to Germany.
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SPORTbible contacted Nottingham Forest for comment.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Steve Cooper has vehemently refuted the claims.