Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season. The best way to follow his journey is by subscribing here
Lewis Cook couldn’t stop crying – a feeling he says he had never experienced before. The Yorkshire-born midfielder was lying on the touchline of a Championship stadium and everything he wanted had fallen apart.
What was worse: he knew exactly what had happened and what it meant for the next year of his life. The crack, the tingle, the numbness, the medics; it made sense in the worst way.
Let’s wind back. Cook had always been tipped for elite-level football. He is one of a select band of English players who have featured for their country at every level from Under-16s up to the seniors. He joined Leeds United at eight years old after being scouted in his local Tadcaster, breaking into the first team when still a kid.
Then-Leeds manager Neil Redfearn recalls watching Cook in those early days, grabbing senior professionals and making them close down.
The team were losing 4-1 against Ipswich and Cook was leading the team at 17.
“I could see Cooky captaining England one day,” Redfearn said.
Then, nothing seemed likely to stop him. Cook joined Premier League side Bournemouth in 2016, got his first call-up for the England senior squad in 2017, made his senior debut in March 2018 against Italy and was on the five-man standby list for the World Cup in Russia that summer.
When Jermain Defoe arrived at Bournemouth and trained with Cook, then aged 21, he compared him to Luka Modric for his ball retention and protection. Let’s call it high praise indeed, albeit Cook laughs and says: “I think he probably must have only seen a glimpse, and only once.”
When Cook wore the armband for England’s Under-20s in 2017, he became the first England player since Bobby Moore to lift a World Cup trophy. It’s fair to say that the Football Association liked him. He has not played for England since. Plenty else has happened.
In December 2018, during a home Premier League win over Huddersfield Town, Cook made an innocuous challenge and ruptured his right anterior cruciate ligament. He was 21. During his rehabilitation, Cook visited four different countries for specialist advice and managed to get back fit in nine months, a remarkable effort given the severity of the damage. His professional world began to rebuild.
And then it happened again, two and a half years later: same innocuous challenge on him, same knee, same injury, only this time double the emotional heft. And so we arrive back at the tears. Shortly before turning 25, Cook had started 81 league games in five seasons at Bournemouth.
“The second one was tough, because I knew what the road ahead looked like from the start,” he says.
“I know how hard it is for players to come back from serious injuries. It’s a tough place to move away from. But once the crying and emotions were done, at least I knew what I had to do.”
In 2022, Bournemouth released a documentary about Cook’s recovery. Towards the start of the documentary, Cook looks into the camera: “I am Lewis Cook and I am relentless.” That is what jumped out most to Bournemouth’s medical staff and the coaches, this burning desire to get fit, stay fit, be the best.
“The main reason for me making it was that I knew what was coming this time,” he says. “It was for other people, really. By creating a documentary, it might help one or two others to come through similar experiences.
“It was invasive, but it wasn’t every second of every day. Hopefully it gave some insight and support into the mental, emotional and physical side of recovery.”
Now 27, Cook’s career has clearly been revitalised by him staying fit – 2023-24 was the first of his career with more than 30 league starts – but also by the arrival of Andoni Iraola to Bournemouth. Under Gary O’Neil, Cook was left on the bench 15 times in 2022-23 as O’Neil often rotated between Joe Rothwell and Philip Billing in central midfield.
Under Iraola, whose first-choice pairing is Cook and Ryan Christie, Cook has flourished. Last season in the Premier League, Rodri was the only regular outfield starter to recover the ball more often and Cook made more interceptions than any other Premier League midfielder. In raw numbers of ball recoveries, everyone else in the top 10 are regular internationals.
At the end of last season, with squad places for the European Championship being rumoured and with Jordan Henderson’s place seemingly up for grabs, Bournemouth expected Football Association representation at the Vitality Stadium that never came.
Instead, England went for youth in Kobbie Mainoo and Adam Wharton; Angel Gomes has since been drafted in. There are plenty at Bournemouth who feel that Cook’s consistency has been overlooked.
“I look back on the age group teams with a huge amount of happiness,” he says.
“I made friends with some excellent teammates and was mentored by some fine coaches. It was a great time. It also showed me that there was a pathway right through to the top and that I was capable of moving through it.
“It’s an amazing achievement to play for your country even once – I was so delighted to be around it, for my family as much as me. If you’re starting regularly in the Premier League as an English player, you should always be working to get into the senior squad, because if you’re playing every week then you can’t be too far away from it. And you never know. I’ll never stop trying to get there.”
The answer, obvious and simple, is to keep doing what you’re doing. Cook is in the top five for tackles and interceptions in the Premier League this season. Iraola loves his work rate and loves the distance he covers. In Christie and Cook, he has two selfless central midfielders. This is a player who Eddie Howe once said ran more than he had ever seen in a player before.
“It’s a requirement in the Premier League now,” Cook says about fitness levels that have repeatedly impressed Bournemouth’s coaches.
“We get our statistical data for every game, and lots get said online, but every player has to be at a point where they are physically elite. If you aren’t, you get run over and outmuscled. It’s an incredibly intense league and everybody I come against is a physical beast.”
Bournemouth 3-1 Southampton (Monday 30 September)
- Game no.: 23/92
- Miles: 190
- Cumulative miles: 3,565
- Total goals seen: 56
- The one thing I’ll remember in May: The cheers – audible on the live TV coverage – when the stadium announcer told Southampton supporters that their train home had been cancelled.
But what’s most interesting is how Cook is being developed by Iraola. He has taken on a role as progressive passer in Bournemouth’s midfield alongside the physical work. He has never assisted more than three goals in a league season but managed two against Southampton when I was in attendance a fortnight ago.
The number of shots per game have almost doubled from last season to this. He’s almost matched his total touches in the opposition penalty area from last season in seven matches.
“When I came through I was a centrally defensive midfielder, but at Leeds I’d play some games as a No 6, then I’d be a No 10, sometimes on the wing. At Bournemouth, apart from in the Championship, I’ve never really played deeper like I am now.
“I’ve always thought that I could chip in with goals and assists, but previously I perhaps didn’t understand that I had the licence to go and make a difference in the opposition penalty area when playing deep. With Ryan [Christie] often coming deeper now too, I can do that. Obviously whenever I score, the next few games I’ll be shooting more! But if there’s a new way that I can make a difference, I have to do that.”
Perhaps England will come knocking again, perhaps they won’t. Perhaps he suffers a little for playing at Bournemouth, a club for whom he is still the only England international in their history. Perhaps he is now in an age bracket, at 27, where the thoughts of coaches turn to those five years younger.
All of that seems a little harsh, if true. Cook was touted for stardom. The journey became longer and harder because of injuries that have threatened the elite careers of others, and yet here he is playing the best football of his life.
But Cook is sanguine enough to avoid any bitterness. The only answer, his mantra on repeat, is to work harder and longer to become stronger. When you have been through the tears and fears of 2018 and 2021, you learn to appreciate football in the present rather than focus too much on what might be. The best thing to do is play and play and play.
“The only target I have is to rack up as many matches as I can,” he says.
“I’m a hugely competitive person. When I do something I want to be the best at it.
“When you finish football you have to know that you did everything you could. That’s the only way you can live without regrets. When I come to look back on this career, that number will be what I look back on: how many appearances did I have? Goals and assists are nice, and of course you want to win games and stay in the Premier League. But it’s about playing as many games as I can.”
Daniel Storey has set himself the goal of visiting all 92 grounds across the Premier League and EFL this season. You can follow his progress via our interactive map and find every article (so far) here
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