He was not selected initially for the new Premier League in 1992 but in January 1993 he made the breakthrough with a match between Aston Villa and Middlesbrough,[1] and remained one of its referees for the rest of his career.
His most senior domestic match was the 1994 League Cup Final between Aston Villa and Manchester United.
[2] Villa won this game 3–1, their last goal coming from a Dean Saunders penalty after Andrei Kanchelskis had handled on the line and was dismissed.† Cooper completed two more seasons, operating entirely in the Premier League and Cups (as was standard for Premier referees at the time) before retiring in 1996.
At the international level, he handled a number of matches, including a European Championship qualifier between the Republic of Ireland and Luxembourg in September 1987.
Cooper's son Steve (born December 1979) is a professional football coach who was most recently the manager of Premier League club Leicester City, having previously been head coach of Nottingham Forest and Swansea City.