I heard a whisper that he was bound for France,in a player-coach capacity.

A lot of that is said with a huge amount of hindsight, who's to say had he stayed at FC his form may have dipped. Would he have been a memebr of the bad apple brigade shipped out by Agar at the end of last year. Afterall most FC fans wanted more discipline and as such would have demanded a P*head like him be shipped out. There is a high likelihood that he would be without a job now (or maybe last year) and in essence in the same position. Or are you saying because it was Paul Cooke the management would have overlooked his bad influence and poor disciplinary record and kept him anyway...

I think the mods will step in here, but it's certainly not the drinking that bothers me about Paul Cookes conduct away from rugby league. I can put up with drunks.

You could be right. He discipline problems may have cost him his time at Hull FC, but he would have probably still have been in a far better position. The damage he did to his reputation to other employers was massive, and he simply is not a big enough star (or in a business sense, a big enough crowd drawer / merchandise seller) for them to overlook that.

You, Hull KR definitely benefited from his move. But him, Paul Cooke the player certainly didn't. It was basically one of the biggest, shooting of ones own foot in professional rugby league for quite some time. He's an idiot - professionally and otherwise.

I don't think the move has cost him in terms of him being attractive to another club, the only club the move ruled out was a move back to Hull. If he was still good enough he would get another club atthe drop of a hat. His biggest problem is that he isn't very good anymore. Todd Carney in oz is perfect example of if your good enough all the rest can be overlooked.

There was a lot of talk that Morgan didn;t allow him to play, this IMO is complete rubbish, he managed it in what he percieved as a big match. He just looked disinterested a lot of the time, along with being out of shape and liking the ale too much. His time at Wakey showed him up, apart from one decent game against FC (surprise that one!!) he looked like the same player he did with us for a lot of matches. Maybe Kear didn;t allow him to play.

Taking aside the libilous stuff you nearly mentioned his liking or a beer or two would have been worse had he stayed at FC where it was more tolerable under the regime he left. The group he played with were known to like a few and this was what Agar dismantled last year, Cooke would have surely been in the firing line when that kull took place and in essence would have been in a similar place.

You can't "take aside" the one of the main reasons people don't like him as a person (both fans and clubs) simply because we can't talk about it unfortunately. That would be just a little too convenient.

I wasn't discounting it, just avoiding it for legal reasons, what I was trying to say that even with that not mentioned he still had a lot of baggage, but in the big picture it wouldn;t matter a jot another club as long as he was a world class performer. Clubs don;t really care if people don;t a player lets face it at FC he had all the aformentioned baggage, rumours, court cases etc and there were still a hell of a lot of Cooke shirts around the city. I'd go as far to say that his was the best seller at your club.

The baggage never ruined him with most of your fans, it was the move that did it and outside the Hull rugby fishbowl it was pretty small news.

i dont hate him,he helped us win the cup and get to a grand final.he did leave in dodgy circumstances and even the most ardent rovers fan would have to admit their crowd would have a lot of hate/dislike for him had the roles been reversed.he did help keep you lot stay up but it certainly wasnt a happy ending for him career wise in the long run was it.knowing that in the end he was more or less surplus at cp may have contributed to his fall

FC fans need to be asking James Rule why Paul Cooke left your club.

I recall Rule's interview in the HDM stating he noticed Cooke's contract wasn't signed the Wednesday before he left - let that be your starting point and work backwards from that.

The clock is ticking until the truth comes out Mr Rule...

to the best of my knowledge if an employee works under the terms and conditions of a contract it is considered to be an accepted contract."working practise" i think is the term used.if the rl/sl were a stronger organisation they wouldnt have rubberstamped him signing for hkr,but as we all know the powers that be in sl are as weak as xxxx,as the wigan points docking fiasco proved.

TBH the RFL have always done it that way.
The Harris, Leeds and Bradford situation was handled exactly the same(I'm sure there has been another one recently but I cant for the life of me think who it was over).
Their view is to let it go through and sort it restrospectivley
Being honest it is probably the easiest way to do it.