The Shay Stadium
Jay Turner-Cooke looks like the latest diamond to be unearthed by FC Halifax Town.
The 21-year-old has been hugely impressive since joining the club in August, producing some stellar performances in central midfield.
He follows in the footsteps of other diamonds in his position to be polished at Town in recent years, such as Kian Spence, Jack Earing and Kane Thompson-Sommers.
And, like them, is showing all the hallmarks of a player destined for big things.
Jay Turner-Cookeplaceholder image
Jay Turner-Cooke
"I'm loving it," he told the Courier. "Obviously I came with no real pre-season and got thrown straight into it in the Forest Green game (his first start), and I couldn't have asked for a better start, scoring on my debut.
"And I've not really looked back, I'm playing most games, most minutes and loving every minute.
"I can't thank the gaffer enough for putting his trust in me and I'm repaying him with my performances on the pitch."
And the scary thing is, Turner-Cooke feels there's still a lot more to come from him.
"I think I can carry on getting better, I still don't think I'm hitting the levels that I can yet, which is hopefully a positive for people watching," he said.
"Hopefully the more the games keep coming, the better I do."
Turner-Cooke supported Sunderland as a kid but signed for Newcastle on his 17th birthday, joining from Sunderland in January 2021.
He spent four-and-a-half years with The Magpies, training with the first-team every day under Eddie Howe.
The midfielder went on every pre-season tour during his time at the club, playing around 15 games on them, and while he didn't make a senior appearance, he did play for their under 21 side in the Football League Trophy.
"Most days I was with them, playing with some of the best players in the league, some would say in the world, the likes of Bruno (Guimaraes)," he said.
"You learn every day from these players, what they do every day, how they carry themselves.
"That's benefitted me to get to the level I am now and hopefully I can use the little experiences I've got to help the others around me."
Turner-Cooke made his professional debut on loan at League Two Tranmere Rovers in February 2023 and also played in the Scottish Premiership for St Johnstone during the first half of the 2023/24 campaign.
"The first time I travelled with the first-team for a Premier League game was Man City away, when I was 17 or 18," he said of his time at Newcastle.
"I was in a few squads, so I was close from being 18-years-old, but I never took that next step, maybe through the loans, not really grasping them and showing them what I could really have done.
"But I don't look back at that in any negative way, I always look to the future and always take every learning curve as a positive and try to show what I can do."
Turner-Cooke feels he was ready for regular first-team football for the last couple of years.
"I've had some sniffs of it but maybe not hit the levels everyone expected me to," he said.
"But hopefully now, coming here has allowed me to play consistently and I think I am starting to show eveyrone what I'm about."
Turner-Cooke has quickly established himself as a key component of the Halifax team.
"The way I play, I do play a bit deeper now, I try and control the game," he said.
"We are a possession-based team, we're not really a lump-it-forward team.
"We've got good players and the system we play, we want to get on the ball, have a lot of the ball and create chances that way.
"And that suits me down to the ground, I want to get the ball off the centre-halves and try to dictate the game.
"That's what he's (Adam Lakeland) said really, he wants me to go and get the ball and dictate the game for the team,
"He has that belief in me that I can do that, so that's what he tells me to do, to go and express myself.
"I feel like I've been doing that and hopefully I can continue to do that."
Like Turner-Cooke, the Town team are young but also hungry and improving all the time.
They face a Yorkshire derby against York City at The Shay on Saturday, but with seven wins in their last eight games, Turner-Cooke says Town are feeling confident.
"We're a young group, a young side, but we've got some really good players and I think we've showed that," he said.
"Especially with winning six games on the bounce, we've showed that more over the 90 minutes of a game.
"The games where we were coming from behind, we maybe showed a bit of naivety and a bit of a young mentality.
"But we've really gelled now and we look a proper side now.
"Every game we go into, we feel we can win and that'll be the same on Saturday.
"Hopefully it'll be a goof crowd and we'll go into that game with every confidence we're going to win it."
Continue Reading