They really don’t make them like the great Tommy Cook any more.

In the football season, he was and still remains Albion’s leading all-time goalscorer.

With the bat, his innings of 278 versus Hampshire in 1930 is even now the highest score by a Sussex-born player.

Tales of his sporting prowess came back to the fore a couple of years ago as Glenn Murray closed in on his 123 goals for Albion.

Murray, who was eventually out on Nelson at 111, certainly knows all about Tommy Cook.

Now it has been revealed that plans for a stage production telling the great all-rounder’s life story were in the pipeline.

The Covid-19 pandemic scuppered that idea.

Instead retired journalist Phil Dennett, from Burgess Hill, has written the first book about Cook.

It will raise money for a mental health charity.

Cook died at only 49 in 1950 after suffering severe depression.

Some of the proceeds from Tommy Cook, The Double Life Of A Superstar Sportsman will be given to Mind.

Cook scored his Albion goals in the 1920s and, between 1922 and 1937, notched up more than 20,000 runs for Sussex.

He served in Russia in the First World War and survived an horrific air crash in South Africa in the Second World War.

The book reveals in detail the background to his sacking as Albion manager in 1947 and his later rise to cult status after his early death.

It uncovers some previously untold details of his complicated personal life as well as his remarkable progress from Cuckfield football and cricket clubs to fame as a professional sportsman.

The Argus:

Tommy Cook of Sussex

Phil, 70, said: “I wrote the book because I felt a Sussex sportsman as good in two fields as Tommy was deserved one.

“In today’s sporting world, where professionals have to concentrate so hard on a chosen sport, his sort of achievement will never be repeated. He was a great servant to Albion and Sussex.”

Phil’s work was originally intended for the stage.

He said: “A former journalist colleague, Mark Gale, who loved both Albion and Sussex, was also a fine theatre critic. At the time of his death it was said he so admired Tommy Cook that he had written a play about him, but that never materialised.

“I later wrote one in Mark’s honour but the pandemic started, and it was never performed.

“Instead, I developed the research I had already done into to book, which has taken me about 14 months to finish. I hope it does him credit.”

He added: “The word unique is so often mis-used that it has become almost meaningless.

“But in the case of Tommy and Sussex sport he was truly unique, the only professional sportsman from the county to perform at such high levels in two sports.

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“I don't think his achievements will be repeated, because modern footballers and cricketers have to concentrate so much on one sport.

“Last year, backed by Albion and funeral directors Gallaghers, I arranged for a suitable memorial tablet in Cuckfield Burial Ground. He deserved to be remembered.”

The book, of more than 260 pages, costs £15 and is available via the Albion shop online by clicking HERE and from the Sussex Cricket Museum at the 1st Central County Ground (sussexcricketmuseum.org).