Difficult year ends on a positive note for Jonny Cooper

When Jonny Cooper starts talking about the personal journey involved in winning back the All-Ireland football title with Dublin he doesn't just mean the usual pressures or self-doubt.

He’s also talking about the vicious assault which just over a year ago left him with multiple stab wounds in his head, neck and shoulders.

Cooper hasn’t talked openly about that incident in the year since, until now. The Dublin defender admits the support he received from the entire GAA community helped him through the trauma of it all, and that being part of the Dublin team was an extra shoulder to lean on – particularly when he needed it most.

“Incidents like that happen all the time,” says Cooper.

“Maybe because I play football for Dublin there was a lot more light shed on it, around the country. But then the support that came in, from around the country, was also what I needed, and got me through a tough period.

“And fortunately for me, as well, Dublin GAA was a big shoulder for me to lean on, when I needed to go lean on it, around that time. It made for a strange initial part of the last 12 months, but once football came round again, it was business as usual, trying to get back into the team, win back the Dublin jersey.”

Still, the night of September 20th, 2014, won’t be easily forgotten. Cooper’s club, Na Fianna, had just been knocked out of the Dublin championship (although he didn’t actually play, due to injury). They spent that night socialising in Dublin to mark the end of the season, only later in the night Cooper got separated from his team-mates. While resting in a doorway at Dorset Street, he was attacked and robbed – completely unprovoked – suffering multiple knife wounds, which required extensive stitching.

More lucky

“I still consider myself more lucky than unlucky,” he says

“I know people go through a lot more torturous things, illnesses and whatever. The positives always outweigh the negatives for me. People go through a lot more than I have. I am always conscious of that. I was fine, that’s the main thing.

“If anything it also reminds me that you can’t take anything for granted, and if I get an opportunity with Dublin, or any personal opportunity in life, that I can’t take anything for granted either. Maybe I was, up to that incident. It reinforces the need to live each day as it comes, and take the opportunities that come.

“Something like that does change everything. It refocuses you, gets your feet back on the ground, because those all opportunities might not be there again. I suppose I always took Dublin and a lot of things for granted up until it happened. So that personal journey was something I had to go on, at the start. Then going back into the team environment, your personal situation, and ego, and everything else, goes out the window. So I was glad for that to come around, when it did, at the end of December and into of January this year.”

Cooper doesn’t intend going out of his way to talk about the incident any further, although he is open to talking with anyone who may have gone through something similar.

“Going forward, if I can help someone else, and if someone can learn from my own misfortunes, that’s what is important.

“It is a nasty enough situation to be talking about openly to younger people, but certainly if anyone gets something from it at the time or since – parents, or kids or families – and use it as an example, then I am happy to talk about it. But it is not something to push on people if they don’t want to talk about it.

Stick together

“The message, really, is just stick together on nights out. In town or wherever you are may seem safe enough places but things can happen if you wander off on your own anywhere. Unfortunately, it happened to me. So just stick together.”

For Cooper, speaking at a new promotion between Dublin sponsor’s AIG and SuperValu, there was never much doubt that he would bid to regain his place on the Dublin tea.

“Initially one of the things that enters your head is, ‘will you be able to put on a pair of boots again?’, and I was quite lucky in that sense that I was able to do that. Everything I got was superficial, so I was extremely lucky from that point of view. There were no doubts, once they told me I was fine. It was something more to drive me on than anything else.”

One month later, gardaí arrested and charged a 31 year-old man in relation to the incident – and that’s where Cooper intends to leave it.

“I left it all to the authorities. I haven’t had any dealings with it since. They’ll deal with it the way they need to deal with it.”

Still, it all made for a particularly satisfying climax to this season, Cooper starting in his familiar corner-back berth in the All-Ireland final win over Kerry that was hailed and celebrated in Dublin city and county.

“Yeah, it had been a bit of a journey for me, personally. Winning the All-Ireland is as good as it’s going to get for any one of us, as a team.

“And on a personal level, getting to play, getting the jersey back, was the other goal. And both were achieved for me,” he concluded.