Jake Cooper is Millwall’s captain and has been at the club for almost a decade.

Towards the latter stages of their 2025-26 season, they found themselves firmly in the promotion mix, with Cooper dreaming of leading his side to the Premier League for the first time.

In conversations in coffee shops, his family home, a hotel and at Millwall’s training ground over the course of the past four months, The Athletic joined him for every step of the rollercoaster ride that ended with heartbreak in the play-offs’ semi-finals this week.

This article tells the story of that period, the twists and turns along the way, and what life looks like for an EFL player.

A bonus day off? ‘Yeah, of course, gaffer!’

Wednesday, February 11; Stables Coffee Co

Our first meeting is at Stables Coffee Co, one of Jake’s favourite spots, close to where he lives near Wokingham, Berkshire, to the west of London, with his wife Beth and three children.

We arrive at the same time, and I’m immediately struck by the size of Millwall’s imposing captain, towering over me at 6ft 7in (201cm).

Cooper meets The Athletic for the first time in February (The Athletic)

He is in high spirits, still buzzing about his team’s statement 2-0 away victory over play-off rivals Wrexham on the Saturday, a result which cements their position in the top six.

Millwall last finished in the play-off places in the second tier of English football in 2001-02, when it was known as the First Division. They have never made it to the Premier League, although they appeared in the top flight for two seasons between 1988 and 1990.

Jake and his team-mates were given the Monday off by Millwall head coach Alex Neil after that win in Wrexham.

“We were meant to be in on Monday, and he came into the changing room and was like, ‘Coops, do you want Monday off?’ ‘Yeah, of course, gaffer!’ The changing room erupted in celebration. It was a massive win, we’re flying.”

Jake made the most of his day off, enjoying a spa day, having been treated by Beth as part of his birthday celebrations. The couple met at a school disco when they were 17.

We discuss Wrexham and the fanfare around the Welsh club with the Hollywood glamour of their ownership and popular TV documentary series, Welcome to Wrexham.

“Ryan Reynolds was there, I saw him in the tunnel,” Jake says. “I remember watching the Disney documentary a few years ago, so it seems surreal now that we’re playing them in our division. It’s crazy.”

For Millwall, having put themselves in the promotion mix, there’s a determination to see the job through.

Jake, who has been at Millwall since joining from his boyhood club Reading in 2017, has seen the club change their model in recent years. They have gone from having one of the division’s oldest squads to prioritising young talent with resale value.

Our first meeting takes place on a Wednesday, which tends to be his regular day off.

In a typical week, Monday is usually a lighter recovery day at Millwall’s training ground near Bromley, south-east London, with some time spent on upper body in the gym. Tuesday is a more intense session, with possibly a lower-body gym session. Thursday includes 11-v-11 training, with a more tactical focus and analysing their opponents that weekend. Friday is more stop-start on the training pitch, walking through key details and focusing on set pieces.

Having been at Millwall for almost a decade, Jake is well placed to offer a perspective on a unique club, one that has long had a reputation for hooliganism and violence, fictionalised in movies such as The Football Factory, starring Danny Dyer.

Millwall have worked hard to challenge stereotypical views of them, being named EFL family club of the year in 2017 and joining forces with the Millwall Romans, an LGBTIQA+ football team, for example.

“The club’s built on a massive history,” Jake says. “Obviously, it gets big headlines in the news. I feel like the honesty is what I love about being a part of the club.

“It’s a tough area, south London. Our fans feel they have a right to show people The Den is a tough place and we’re a tough club — we don’t take prisoners. The fans feel that responsibility. They are very loyal, very honest. The Den holds 20,000 but it can feel like (a crowd of) 30,000 at times.

“They don’t sing many different songs, but the ones they sing are very catchy. When you hear that ‘Millll’ it’s deafening in the stadium, you can’t hear anything next to you.”

Millwall’s next run of results:

Sheffield Wednesday 1-2 Millwall
Millwall 1-3 Portsmouth
Millwall 3-0 Birmingham City
Preston 0-2 Millwall

Dad mode and juggling family life: Football is ‘boring’

Monday, March 2; dinner at the Cooper household

Jake greets me at the front door and we walk through to the open-plan kitchen, where he is chef for the night, preparing a meal of chicken, pasta and pepper.

Elsie, eight, and Emelia, six, are back from school and playing happily in the garden, taking turns on the trampoline. Beth is keeping a watchful eye on one-year-old Henry, their cheerful son who is toddling in and out of the house.

Since our last meeting, Millwall have won three matches, the highlight being a 3-0 home victory over Birmingham City, where Jake scored his third goal of the season. But before that, there was a disappointing defeat at The Den against Portsmouth, a team at the lower end of the Championship.

Dinner is served at 6pm. There’s discussion around the table about the girls’ days at school, their homework, potential outfits for World Book Day later in the week and new Millwall signing Barry Bannan’s hair.

I ask the Cooper girls whether they enjoy watching their dad play football and Elsie is first to reply, saying football is “boring”. Beth says they will put Jake’s matches on TV when he is playing, but it is usually on in the background.

The girls are instead more taken by horse riding, and spent much of the recent February half-term visiting the nearby stables to pursue their favourite hobby.

With dinner finished, Emelia starts playing Simply Piano, while Elsie brings down her recorder, as Henry trots around the table after enjoying some chocolate courtesy of The Athletic.

Emelia Cooper plays the piano while dad Jake watches (The Athletic)

As the girls return to the garden and Jake cleans up, I chat with Beth, who used to work as a midwife but is now looking after Henry at home. We discuss the challenges of being married to a professional footballer.

“It’s probably the uncertainty of it,” she says. “And the fact it’s their life, they love it so much, and it’s so fickle, isn’t it? When it’s not going well for them, it’s gutting to watch. I know it’s such a privileged life that we have, but they are away so much, and that’s something I really struggle with. It’s things like Christmas or Easter, that’s one of the worst things for me, because the games are so busy and he’s away. You want to do all these nice things for Christmas, and they’re not home.”

She says Jake has got better over time at not coming home in a dark mood after a poor result, and they try to keep football separate from their family life.

Jake now clicks straight into dad mode when he arrives back at the house.

Beth says his staying with one club for a long time has given the family stability, with their girls happily settled at the same school.

She used to enjoy going to The Den regularly but making trips to Millwall’s ground has become more difficult since Henry was born.

Talk then turns to summer plans, holidays and weddings — with Beth laughing at the memory of Jake serenading her with a Lionel Richie song on their big day — before it is time to leave, as the Cooper household begins its bath and bedtime ritual.

Hull City 1-3 Millwall
Millwall 1-0 Derby County

Pre-match preparations — and dealing with norovirus

Friday, March 13; Canary Wharf

We meet in the lobby of the hotel in Canary Wharf, east London, where Jake stays every Friday evening before a home game.

Cooper’s pre-match routine for home games includes a hotel stay in Canary Wharf (The Athletic)

With his three children at home, coming to the hotel ensures he can have a full night of uninterrupted sleep.

Since our previous meeting, Millwall have recorded two more impressive wins, away to fellow play-off hopefuls Hull City and then at home to Derby County.

With his team now third in the league, Jake says his biggest challenge is keeping people’s feet on the ground as the promotion chase reaches crunch time.

He has also been dealing with his own issues in the week, as he was struck down with norovirus.

He started feeling feverish on the Friday night before the Hull game but managed to power through, scoring the opening goal in a 3-1 victory.

“I’m scoring with my feet this year, which is a bit different,” he says. “I saw the fans right in front of me, so I got a bit carried away with the celebration. It felt like a big moment, especially when I wasn’t feeling very well. It was a lot, mentally, just to get out on the pitch.”

With Jake poorly and Millwall in action again on the Tuesday night, their captain travelled separately back down from Yorkshire to London with the club physio and doctor.

“Sunday, I was all over the gaff, I couldn’t eat,” he says. “Monday, I tried to come in to training, we were doing the (team) shape, and I had to just run inside to go to the toilet. The gaffer was like, ‘Where’s he gone?’. They had to do it without me. He was then messaging me all the time saying, ‘Are you gonna be OK?’. I’m saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll be great’, but in my head I’m thinking, ‘Am I?’.”

Despite that, Jake managed to play in the Derby game the following night.

“I did it somehow, and we won again,” he says. “We probably didn’t deserve to, but we’re finding a way.”

With the mood buoyant at Millwall, Jake is tasked with responsibility for the music in the changing room.

What’s been the soundtrack to this season?

“We have a lot of throwback stuff or sing-alongside,” he says. “It’s probably quite a wedding playlist. Little bit of Oasis, a bit of Taylor Swift. We enjoy Up and Down by the Vengaboys because one of the lads can do a really good twerk to it.”

Jake is not the only Millwall player in this hotel on Fridays. Tonight, he is staying with fellow father and close friend Danny McNamara, a club stalwart who came through the academy.

They are planning on eating at Wagamama, a favourite of Jake’s, and watching the night’s Championship match between Wrexham and Swansea City before turning in.

In the morning, Jake tries to stay in bed as long as possible, often until 10.30am, before a breakfast of pancakes, porridge and a croissant. He will have no more food until the match, but tops up with energy gels before and during it.

He will arrive at The Den — around 20 minutes from the hotel by car — for 1pm. There will then be a set-pieces meeting and final instructions around 1.30pm, before the players get into their warm-up.

Millwall 1-2 Blackburn Rovers
Ipswich Town 1-1 Millwall
Middlesbrough 1-2 Millwall
Millwall 1-2 Norwich City
West Bromwich Albion 0-0 Millwall

A private plane and a training-ground barbecue

Tuesday, April 14; Millwall’s training ground

On arrival at Millwall, there’s a smell of meat cooking.

After their morning training session, players and staff are treated to a barbecue in the spring sunshine, where there’s a selection of beef burgers, chicken thighs, pork sausages, octopus and prawns to choose from.

Millwall are third in the table, two points behind Ipswich Town in second, with four league matches left to play.

They are without a win in their past two games, but defeated fellow promotion candidates Middlesbrough 2-1 away in the match before that, their high point of the season so far.

Chairman James Berylson put on a private plane back to London from Teesside for the players after that comeback victory on Good Friday, where Millwall got two goals from Josh Coburn, who signed for them from Middlesbrough last summer.

“That’s the first time that’s happened since I’ve been in this club, so it was very jovial in the airport and on the plane,” Jake says as we chat after the barbecue. “The chairman treated us because of the position we’re in. I was home by 7pm (after a 12.30pm kick-off), it was lovely.”

Is it difficult not to get carried away, given the lofty position Millwall are in?

“It’s hard, isn’t it? We are human beings, and when we beat Boro, everyone was like, ‘F***ing hell, we’re second in the league with six games left to go. We could do this’,” Jake says.

However, by picking up one point from the next two matches, Millwall failed to build on that great position.

Following a 0-0 draw at struggling West Bromwich Albion on Friday night in their last outing, the squad enjoyed a team-bonding get-together the following day in London.

Away from the pitch, Jake has been watching season two of At Home with the Furys on Netflix with Beth, while the family visited Centre Parcs during the international break.

Jake admits he finds it hard to switch off at this busy time of the season, particularly with so much at stake.

Millwall 2-0 Queens Park Rangers
Stoke City 1-3 Millwall
Leicester City 1-1 Millwall
Millwall 2-0 Oxford United

Play-offs

Hull City 0-0 Millwall
Millwall 0-2 Hull City

The aftermath of play-offs agony

Tuesday, May 12; travelling to Millwall’s training ground

Jake is usually a sparky character — but things are different on this occasion. As he makes his way to work, he is despondent.

It is the morning after the night before, and Millwall’s season is over.

There will be no Wembley trip and no promotion party, just the pain of an agonising play-offs semi-finals defeat and a lingering sense of what might have been.

After missing out on automatic promotion to Ipswich by a single point — and despite winning their last game of the regular season against Oxford United — Millwall finished third.

Jake, who was named Millwall fans’ player of the season, missed the post-match presentations on the pitch as son Henry fell into a door and needed six stitches, which meant his dad had to hurry off to hospital.

Cooper in the car with son Henry, who needed six stitches in his ear after a fall (The Athletic)

After their third-place finish, Millwall again faced Hull, who came sixth, in the play-offs.

After a cagey 0-0 draw in the first leg, Millwall lost the second leg 2-0 at The Den, following an underwhelming display. It was a game Hull deserved to win.

“It’s the worst feeling I’ve had, to be honest. Really tough,” Jake says. “We didn’t really show up enough, things weren’t clicking and, to be fair to them, the way they changed shape and the plan they came with took us by surprise. We didn’t deal with it or with the occasion.

“If you’re not going to perform on nights like that, then you’re going to get punished, especially against good teams that have finished in the top six.”

Jake says the mood in Millwall’s dressing room after the game was very low. He missed the manager’s message to the players as he had to go for drug testing straight away.

“I think there was this sense that the season wasn’t done at all,” he adds. “Nobody was preparing for a break or for it to be over, so it was more shock than anything.”

It was particularly tough because of the position Millwall had put themselves in.

“We had everything we wanted, the home leg second against the team that finished sixth,” he says. “But you’ve just got to give credit to Hull, they’ve done incredibly well.”

Cooper is powerless to prevent Hull’s clinching second goal in the play-off semi-final’s second leg (Warren Little/Getty Images)

Jake is talking while travelling to the training ground to collect his belongings before the squad’s summer break and to catch up with boss Neil. He also wanted to say goodbye to team-mates who are potentially leaving the club in the coming transfer window.

Is that a strange feeling?

“It’s football, isn’t it? You spend every day together and then all of a sudden, that’s just it for some of the relationships between some of the guys,” he replies. “You kind of get used to it, but at the same time, it’s not nice.”

After some time off, attention will turn to next season. Millwall will want to emulate Coventry City, who lost in the play-off semi-finals last season, then won the title this time.

“You just get excited before, and you think what could have been,” he says. “To miss out on that chance with the fans and with the rest of the players because of what they’ve given this season, I think they deserve the best, and we weren’t able to give them that.

“We have to start again and try to do that for them.”