Book is fitting tribute to Brighton and Hove Albion record holder

Tommy Cook, The Double Life of a Superstar Sportsman covers his colourful life and his highly successful careers with Albion and Sussex County Cricket Club.

It commemorates the 120th anniversary of Tommy’s birth in Cuckfield on January 5, 1901, and the ‘birth’ of Albion later the same year.

In November 2020 a memorial stone was laid on Tommy’s grave in a ceremony at Cuckfield burial ground, paid for by Albion and funeral directors Gallaghers.

The ceremony was to have been held on January 5, 2021 but had to be brought forward because of the worsening pandemic and the tighter restrictions on outdoor activities.

Cook scored 123 goals from 1922 to 1929 for Brighton, and Glenn Murray, now on loan at Watford, is the only modern-day player to approach his figure.

In his professional cricket career between 1922 and 1937, Cook scored a total of 20,198 first-class runs, including 22 in a North and South match which was an England trial.

He won a single England football cap in a 2-1 win against Wales in 1925 but despite being praised was never chosen again for his country.

Author and former Mid Sussex Times news editor Phil Dennett, 70, from Burgess Hill, who first watched Albion in the 1960s, said: “1901 was a great year for Albion, with its formation and the birth of a record-breaking striker.

“I hope the book is a fitting tribute to a man who still holds the goalscoring record for Albion, 90 years after he set it, and also scored more than 20,000 runs for Sussex.”

Details of the publication date and outlets will be announced later this month. Tommy, sacked as Albion manager in 1947, took his own life at 49 in January 1950 in Cuckfield and Phil will be making a donation from sales of the book to mental health charity Mind.