The initial letter arrived about four or five years ago—I truly regret not keeping them all now. It was forwarded from the Daily Mail’s office and featured a notably distinct handwriting.
Jilly Cooper was immersing herself in the football world for what would become her acclaimed bestseller, Tackle. Instead of seeking my opinion on various aspects, her note simply expressed her liking for a particular article. She was thrilled by football, admired Manchester City, and encouraged more articles.
Receiving such a letter—a card, actually—adorned with a greyhound image was astounding, considering the sender and the rarity of postal letters these days. Especially not ones exuding such warmth—‘I appreciate what you’ve done.’ ‘I enjoyed reading about them’—in over a hundred words.
I replied, and soon another note from her would arrive whenever a piece resonated with her. It was usually due to the stories about the people I wrote about: Kevin Keegan, Ray Kennedy, and Judith Gates, whose life with her late footballer husband, Bill, led her to advocate for safer heading practices in his memory. Jilly appreciated that story as well.
Her dedication to researching her book was unwavering, and after a while—perhaps a year—we finally met for lunch at her home in Bisley, Gloucestershire. Over a glass of champagne with shepherd’s pie at her kitchen table, I realized how many others were also touched by her correspondence. Dozens of cards returned, each telling stories of the many she had written to. Jilly traveled less, so the world visited her.
That afternoon, she was seeking my insights on the football personalities for her book. She was fond of Harry Kane, Cristiano Ronaldo, Steven Gerrard, and the Lionesses. What were these remarkable people, as she perceived them, truly like?
Pictured with Jilly Cooper at Forest Green Rovers’ ground, where a postponed football match turned into a memorable afternoon
Jilly Cooper and her beloved rescue greyhound Bluebell, whose death three years ago she felt so much. Her cards often had images of greyhounds on the front
I don’t think I helped her so much and took far more from that afternoon than she did. I ventured to voice some rambling ideas about writing a book. ‘That sounds a bit gloomy. Write something fun,’ Jilly offered, when I told her of one I had in mind.
I ended up writing a book about the Hollywood owners of my team, Wrexham, and though it didn’t exactly set the world on fire, who else but Jilly became my cheerleader. She included it in her round-ups of Christmas books in the Mail on Sunday and Good Housekeeping. She even enthused about it when we met up again, at Forest Green Rovers, the club just down the road from her. She’d taken an executive box for family and friends for the club’s match against Wrexham.
A waterlogged pitch put paid to the game an hour before I reached the ground, but we had lunch anyway. Another indelible afternoon, ‘despite not a football in sight!’ as Jilly’s wonderful assistant, Amanda Butler, put it, when I messaged her about that occasion this week.
I last saw Jilly at the launch event for Tackle, in London’s Hatchards bookshop: A small, indistinctive figure amid the huge throng gathered on the narrow stairways and among the bookshelves, who then stepped up to speak. She brought that house down with her sparkling, engaging, fearlessly racy 20 minutes of talk.
Her book, needless to say, was a huge hit, propelling her to the front pages of newspapers of all stripes in a way that reflected why her magnetism transcended divides of class and age. I had written some words about it in my Daily Mail Sport column when a landline call came from a number I didn’t recognise. It was Jilly, recipient of a million different write-ups, wanting to convey her delight
Looking back through her most recent cards on Monday, when news of her death, aged 88, came down, I remembered how my report from Real Madrid about Trent Alexander-Arnold, who’d spoken in Spanish at his introduction as a player, had caught her eye. ‘What a riveting adventure for him,’ she wrote. ‘We must all learn Spanish.’
We both mentioned meeting up again and though it would have been easier for me, than her, to make that happen, it never did. How much I regret that, now. How much I will miss her wise counsel, her spirit and those so-distinctive letters. There is so much to take from her example. The need to live, love, explore – and write.
