I'll do anything to see this super Cooper in action

Every time we played any form of football – on the hard jaggy concrete surface at the back of the primary school – the lads who could really play would always namecheck Davie Cooper, who I believe was a star player at the time for a once-mighty team, known – and I may be wrong here – as the Glass Key Rangers.

Well I had that Cooper going in one ear at school and then at home would have my dad talking about another Cooper – comic magician and master of the deadpan fizzog Tommy Cooper – and how much he admired his wit.

My own personal favourite Cooper came along some years later – at 9pm on October 23, 1990 to be precise – when BBC2 broadcast the first episode of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and FBI special agent Dale Cooper came into my life.

I didn’t even know he was played by a guy called Kyle MacLachlan, I just thought this guy was weird and cool, someone who looked a wee bit like Robert Vaughn’s Napoleon Solo from The Man From Uncle.

He was a guy you could really root for as he tried his gosh darndest to solve the bizarre murder of Laura Palmer while consuming damn fine coffee and various pies.

Fast forward almost 30 years and he’s back again – older and, as of episode four, a high functioning vegetable in a black suit and tie.

But he’s back and my world is a better place for it.

And I didn’t even need to sell my soul to Sky Atlantic to see him after my wife – also a card carrying Agent Cooper fan – used a crafty combination of our son’s Xbox 360 and Now TV to get the new episodes.

It’s going to be a barrel of fun with this Cooper.