Tradgedy is a word that sits uneasily with sport. Few footballers have actually faced it but Colin Cooper did last year.

On the field Chief Football Writer Clive Hetherington finds the courageous Middlesbrough defender keen to extend his long association with the club beyond the end of the season

FEW footballers have a sense of perspective like Colin Cooper.

As much as he loves a profession that has brought its rewards, the Middlesbrough stalwart ultimately knows where his priorities lie - with his family.

Cooper's pragmatism was borne of tragedy. Football has at least provided a focus for the former England international to help him cope with the loss of two-year-old son Finlay, who died in January last year just hours after Boro's FA Cup fourth-round victory over Manchester United. Sedgefield-born Cooper admitted he came close to announcing his immediate retirement from the game.

He may have done so had it not been for his wife Julie, who encouraged him to carry on playing.

With her love and support, and that of his three daughters, Cooper bravely returned to action almost three months later.

Now, even though he has turned 36 and his contract with Boro runs out at the end of this season, Cooper has no thoughts of calling time on his career.

"Football still means a lot to me after what happened last year,'' he said. "But now I don't put the same pressure on myself to play well in each game.

"Now I just try to enjoy it. After all, it's just a job - there's football and there's life. At the end of a game on a Saturday, all I ever want to do is get back home to my family.''

Cooper, in his second spell with the club who launched his career, is hoping manager Steve McClaren will offer him a deal for at least another term.

"I want to stay at Middlesbrough,'' confirmed Cooper, who has made 373 appearances for the club. "I've had 15 years as a player here and it's my spiritual home.

"Middlesbrough means a lot to me and I want to stay and continue to play at as high a level as possible. I want to stay in the Premiership, but I don't know yet what is going to happen.

"Before the first game of the season, the manager told me I had an important part to play.

"He said I would not be a regular but would play when there were injuries and suspensions. I have played a number of games and hope to play against West Brom this weekend.

"The manager told me I would also help the young players. We have good young players coming through who will make it in the Premier League, even though it's even more difficult now than it used to be.

"I have enjoyed doing that, but I can still give them a run for their money. Mentally, I'm a better player now than ten years ago, but they have youth on their side and, eventually, that's going to beat me."

Cooper, who joined Boro's YTS scheme after being spotted playing for Bishop Auckland Boys, was a member of the squad when the gates of Ayresome Park were padlocked during the 1986 liquidation crisis.

The late Willie Maddren had much to do with his development, but Bruce Rioch brought him into Boro's first team and they were reunited in 1991 when Cooper moved to Millwall in a £300,000 deal.

Rioch converted Cooper from a left-back to a central defender and he joined Nottingham Forest for £1.7m two years later.

At the City Ground, Cooper became club captain and won his two England caps under Terry Venables in 1995.

Bryan Robson, Venables' right-hand man with England, lured Cooper back to Teesside in August 1998 in a £2.5m exit from Forest.

Such were the changes at Middlesbrough, a new stadium and a state-of-the-art training ground which was then in the making, that Cooper felt he was joining a different club altogether.

The Riverside Stadium and Boro's training complex and academy at Hurworth, were the vision of chairman Steve Gibson.

And Cooper is unequivocal about the debt of gratitude Boro fans owe to the multi-millionaire haulage magnate.

"The chairman has to give himself a pat on the back for what he's done,'' said Cooper.

"Clubs bigger than Middlesbrough are in financial trouble. He has been fantastic and nobody else could have done it but him.

"He's a huge supporter of the club, a real fan, and I suppose he puts his money where his mouth is.

"There's no PLC. He only has to answer to himself, so he's done it.

"Middlesbrough was going out of business when he arrived in the eighties, first with the consortium and then on his own.

"This club is unrecognisable from the place I first came to as a kid."

But with Cooper having been part of the old and the new, it won't be quite the same if he is forced to move on this summer.