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The Ernie Cooksey Scholarship

For the young & talented sports persons!!

Ernie Cooksey for those of you who were not privileged to have known him, was everything that was good, I have known John (Ernie's dad) for over forty years. I had not seen John for a long time, then to my surprise he showed up when I was at QPR
and we spoke. He told me that his son was playing against us who was this little lad with blonde hair who had an engine that was very hard to find in someone so young but also he was a real player.

That was to play a big part in the way Ernie lead his life, his dream of playing  professional football and the path to reaching that dream was hard but he never once changed direction even being rejected by clubs such as Charlton Athletic and Colchester United.

After spending two years as a YTS, He then went to non-league football where he was taken to Oldham by Bob Dowie whose brother Ian Dowie was manager. The fans of Oldham idolised Ernie even though he was a Londoner and only played 35 games for them. Even though things did not go too well for him, He carried it on and it was soon after that he was diagnosed with skin cancer. He came back south this time with his wife and lived in Welling. He still played non-league football but the sad ending to this young man's life was that he never lived long enough to see his baby daughter born. I write this with the greatest respect to John and Ernie's sister Joanne and to Ernie's wife, Louise and daughter Isabella Georgina.

The uncanny thing about this is that I never really got to know Joanne and one day I received a phone call from a young mum saying she wanted to bring her son Tom to the Academy.   He had been coming to the Academy for a few weeks when I saw John pull up into the car park.  He came into the club house where we spoke and told me that his grandson had been attending Aim Higher. I then saw Joanne and I was looking at Ernie, thats when it came to me and I put the idea to Joanne and John. We now have the help of John Dyer, one of Ernie's oldest friends and have now started the scholarships in Ernie's name. Once again a big thanks to all you Oldham fans who carry Ernie's flag to all England games and keep Ernie's name alive. Can you tell me any England player or in fact, any player in the world treated with the same respect after 36 years in the game because I haven't so it goes to show he was some kind of man and he did it his way, the right way,

"THE ERNIE COOKSEY WAY"