David Cooper joined Exeter as a young player just released from Luton Town. He was at City for four seasons between 1991 and 1995 before embarking on a playing career in non-league football and later becoming a lead academy coach at Crystal Palace.  

David was an associate schoolboy, then a trainee, with Luton Town but was released without being offered a full contract. Exeter City stepped in and signed him in August 1991 and, after playing in the reserves for the first half of the season, he was called up to make his Football League debut in the local derby at Torquay United on New Year’s Day 1992. This was the first of nearly fifty league appearances spread over four seasons as David never really established himself in the side before being released in May 1995.

David then returned to Hertfordshire and signed for Hitchin Town playing in the team that beat Bristol Rovers in the FA Cup in 1995/96. He later managed Hitchin as well as nearby Welwyn Garden City and, by now an UEFA ‘A” Licence coach, David was working within the Crystal Palace Academy from 2020 as the under-15s lead coach after previously working as an operations director in the construction industry.