Team owner Clive Palmer made the left-field decision to hand Cooper the captaincy – at just 17 years and 152 days old – due to the suspension of regular captain Michael Thwaite and the unavailability of a host of other senior players for Friday’s match.
In a further twist, coach Miron Bleiberg was suspended just prior to the game and a virtual youth team fielded – leaving most onlookers to give the bottom-placed club little chance of earning a good result.
But Cooper and his fellow youngsters nearly pulled off the seemingly impossible, frustrating the Heart for most of the match before losing 1-0 to a 79th-minute Eli Babalj goal at AAMI Park.
Interim coach Mike Mulvey was pleased with the response of his young charges, most of whom play under him in the national youth league.
“It was a respectable peformance – we’re not leaving with nothing, we’re leaving with a lot,” he said.
“We’ve got some performances out of players that will stand them in good stead for the future and we lost the game by trying to play football the right way, playing out from the back.
“I’d much rather lose a game that way than lumping it up the park and hoping for the best. We paid a big penalty for one slip but we’ll take a lot away from this game.”
Midfielder Cooper, who was born in Vanuatu and spent his early youth in New Zealand before moving to Queensland, is a star of Gold Coast’s youth side and has struck six goals for the team this season. He was pleased to be called up to the A-League squad but admits the captaincy came as a shock.
“When Miron told me I would wear the armband it was the biggest surprise I’ve ever had,” he said.
“I thought it was a joke, really. But it was legit. If I told my mates, they’d laugh. I have no experience in the A-League and I’ve been looking forward to making my debut for a long time but wearing the armband is a massive shock.”
The Australian U-17 international, who featured in all four of the Joeys’ games at the 2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Mexico, became the youngest captain in A-League history and the appointment of one so young has scarcely happened in other parts of the world.
In Europe, no player under 18 has ever been given the captaincy of a top-flight club. Former England international Ray Wilkins has come the closest, taking the reins of second-division Chelsea at 18 and leading them into the first division that year. Scotsman Gary Gillespie, who went on to play in the great Liverpool sides of the 1980s, captained second-division Scottish club Falkirk at 17 in 1977.

Share