COOK WANTS NEW TASTE OF THE PREM
BY THIS afternoon Steve Cook will have played more games for Nottingham Forest than he did all season for Bournemouth.
He says he doesn't know why ten years with the Cherries ended the way it did but now there is a new challenge, a new target.
Tuesday night's win over Barnsley took Nottingham Forest to within one point of the Championship play-offs.
Manager Steve Cooper's revival of Forest has been remarkable, taking them from the bottom of the table in September to thinking again that they might become a Premier League club for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century.
Cooper himself almost got into the Premier League last season, managing Swansea to a losing play-off final against Brentford. Now he's got a man in his team who has done it, got into the Premier League and seen how good it is.
Cook, 30, will be a huge influence in the Forest dressing room as they try and complete this rags to riches season.
He got as far as the play-off semi-finals himself last season, Bournemouth losing to Brentford six years after the best day of his career er when the Cherries es surged into the big time as Championship winners.
Cook played all 46 games for Bournemouth when they won the title in 2015 so no-one knows better how to do it.
Title
There was a six-game spell early in that season – started by a Forest victory – when Bournemouth couldn't get a win and a five-game spell just after this time of year when it looked as if their promotion run was going to crash. But 13 without defeat clinched it, beating Bolton 3-0 to secure promotion in late April and a 3-0 win at Charlton on the following Saturday in May brought the title.
For five years in the Premier League, Cook played in virtually every game and loved it.
Never mind Forest's players, there are thousands in the fanbase that have never seen their team play in the Premier League. All they've ever seen is what it was like in the top flight back in the day on the big screen re-runs at the City Ground, when Nottingham Forest were the best club in Europe, never mind England.nd.
Bournemouth, it is fair to say, will never be what Forest once were and Cook deals in what he knows when he talks to the Reds' current day players.
“What is out there, what is in the Premier League is something that can really change your life, footballing wise. It's incredible,” he says. “That Premier League is the best for a reason.
“The excitement of being promoted, when I won the league with Bournemouth all those years ago, is still my favourite ever season. It was truly special.
‘The excitement of being promoted with Bournemouth is still my favourite ever season. It was truly special'
Steve Cook
“I would love the lads here to experience that and I would love to experience it again, because it is incredible.
“These lads need to realise what is available and what is out there.”
Cook had been loaned out by Brighton to Non-League Eastbourne and Mansfield and joined Bournemouth for £150,000 ten years ago in League One.
Climbed
He was bottom of that league at one point, but he's held de- fences together at centre-half and climbed high via promo- tion to the Championship and then the top flight.
Bournemouth have a testimonial planned for him and manager Scott Parker says he will be welcome any time he wants to visit a club where he helped make history over nearly 400 games.
“Sometimes you can think ‘I've had a good career in the Championship',” adds Cook. “It is a great league – but there's so much more out there.”
A two-and-a-half year contract with Forest gives Cook the opportunity to taste that again. He's become a vital signing, too, with key defensive man Joe Worrall out for six weeks because of three broken ribs.
Cook only played four games for Bournemouth this season, three league and that Carabao Cup 6-0 thrashing by Norwich. Parker had decided Cook's time was up. But it's been full on at Forest – played four, won four, including the FA Cup victory over Arsenal that had Mikel Arteta looking suicidal.
It's a start as bright as one of Michael Portillo's jackets and there's struggling Cardiff, who haven't won at home in the league since just after Bonfire Night, to be beaten today.
Cooper, back in Wales with three defeats in his 20 Forest league games, has given Cook tools with which to build his third promotion.
“The Nottingham Forest fans who remember being in the top league all those years ago will be desperate to experience the modern form of it, coming up against the Man Citys and the top players,” adds Cook.
“There's nothing better than a promotion season. It's truly special.
“I would love to experience that at a club like this and see where potentially this club could go.”
Packed
The City Ground is packed out these days. They've got a sold-out FA Cup tie with holders Leicester a week today, the club is bouncing.
It may have been on a smaller scale given the size of Bournemouth's ground, and they don't have the history of Forest, but Cook was a key player for the Cherries and he can relate then to now.
“The difference is the changing room, how you respond to losses and having a real togetherness,” says Cook.
“I've found it to be a good group of players here.
“There has to be a hunger to win games and not get carried away with where we're at. That is vitally important “We have to realise what is out there – all the perks of the Premier League, all the perks of winning games and enjoying life. There's nothing better than winning and experiencing the good atmosphere.
“But it can easily change. We don't want to take it for granted.
“We want to really go into it head-first, be committed, and who knows? It's a long second half of the season with a lot of points to be won. It's an exciting time.”
Since Cook has been in Forest's defence, they have only conceded one goal – Tom Lawrence's penalty for Derby conceded by Cook – and they look tight, even without Worrall.
Cook says: “I've got a lot to prove. I'm really desperate to succeed here.
“Being a player that was at one club for a long time, I wanted to do something different and try
to push my career in a different direction, to succeed at a ferent club. dif-“I definitely feel I still have something to prove.
“I was out of the team at Bournemouth for a reason -I don't know that reason.
“I didn't play for six months, so I need to prove that I am still able to do that.
“Once you hit 30, some people write you off, saying you can't do it as well as a 24-year-old.
“But, using my experience, I need to embrace the situation we're in at Nottingham Forest and add to the already-talented group we've got.
“I want to get promoted again. I want to play in the Premier League.
“If we can manage it at a club like this, it would be amazing.”
‘I definitely feel I still have something to prove. I'm really desperate to succeed. I want to get promoted again'
Steve Cook
