Auckland FC striker Sam Cosgrove. Photo / Auckland FC
If you are going to relaunch your football career, why not do it 18,000km from home?
That was a major part of English striker Sam Cosgrove’s mindset, as he decided to take the plunge with Auckland FC. The 28-year-old has had a nomadic career – across 12 clubs – but had never played outside of the United Kingdom.
There have been notable highs – including European football, a Wembley playoff and a Scottish League Cup final against Celtic – but also plenty of tough periods, as he struggled for game time and form, along with a major health scare in 2020.
So when his agent presented the unusual opportunity, he was receptive – after the initial geographical shock.
“It was completely out of the blue and at first it takes you back,” Cosgrove told the Herald. “I had never even visited Australia or New Zealand, so it was a completely new scenario. I didn’t know too much about the league, but when the call came in, it was something that I took very seriously.”
Cosgrove needed a fresh start and going out of your comfort zone – and to a new continent – was part of that, while the Auckland FC mission was enticing, albeit a step into the unknown.
“The main thing for me was, it was a new challenge,” Cosgrove said. “[Over] the last couple of years, things went a little bit stale and I lost my spark and a little bit of a love for football. [So] when the opportunity arose to do something completely different and experience something that could be a very exciting project, it was a bit of a no-brainer.”
Five years ago, Cosgrove was on top of the world. After a long road to professional football – via various non-league clubs – he had his major breakthrough at Aberdeen, after signing from Carlisle in January 2018. He scored 21 goals in his first full season for the Scottish Premiership team – including 17 in the league – then another 23 in the 2019/20 campaign, with a hat-trick in Europa League qualifying.
Cosgrove was the subject of a reported £2 million ($4.7m) bid from a French club, which he turned down, before a knee injury put him out for several months. At the same time, he was dealing with a heart scare – that he feared might end his career – before eventually being given the all-clear by specialists, as they concluded that an abnormality in the heart echo chamber was a genetic anomaly.
Off that backdrop, Cosgrove moved to Birmingham City in January 2021 for a reported £2m. But he barely played at the Championship club, with just two starts and only 324 minutes across 17 appearances. Most of that period was spent out on loan at League One clubs, including Shrewsbury Town, AFC Wimbledon, Plymouth Argyle, Barnsley and Stockport County.
The Plymouth spell was the highlight, as he helped them top League One – with eight league goals and two assists from 35 appearances (13 starts) – while his first season at Barnsley saw them reach the playoffs. But there have been hard times too.
“It’s been mixed – the long term in football mirrors the short term,” Cosgrove said. “There’s a hell of a lot of ups and downs, a real rollercoaster. There’s been success in there, with Aberdeen, then the lows of getting injured, having the heart scarce. The highs of getting a move to Birmingham and playing championship football, but then the lows of not playing too much there. The highs of Plymouth where I got promoted and then the lows of other loan deals that didn’t work out.”
But Cosgrove brings undoubted pedigree – and hunger. His CV includes 103 matches for Aberdeen and 123 games in League One across almost 300 professional appearances. He has played in the FA Cup, the League Cup and appeared at the holy trinity of English stadiums – Wembley, Old Trafford and Anfield – while he faced Burnley in a Europa League qualifying tie in 2018, with All Whites captain Chris Wood getting a goal and an assist across the two legs.
Cosgrove is enjoying life in Auckland. Pre-season training was “full-on” – though that was no surprise, as Steve Corica’s expectations were made clear early on.
“The manager demands a lot of work from the two strikers but that’s football now anyway,” Cosgrove said.
He has found the squad “a great bunch” and the general public friendly whenever he has ventured outside his central city apartment.
“Everyone’s been incredibly welcoming, not just at the club, but just around the city, so it’s a pretty cool place to be,” Cosgrove said. “It’s not too dissimilar to the UK, the cultures are fairly similar. I’ve been telling everyone back home that it’s kind of if you had picked the best things out of the UK and brought them here and left all the crap back at home.”
But Cosgrove is here to do a job – and an critical one at that. At 1.92m, he is the new target man for Auckland FC, the one to get on the end of the deliveries from Francis de Vries, Hiroki Sakai, Guillermo May and others. Given Auckland’s strength at set piece and reliance on crosses, Cosgrove is a key piece of the puzzle.
“One thing that was mentioned to me as soon as I set foot in the door was the quality of the delivery from the flanks,” Cosgrove said. “Obviously Francis and Hiroki both like to get forward and I’ve experienced first-hand how good the delivery is. So the more that the boys can feed me in the box, then the happier I’ll be.”
It’s too early to make big predictions but Cosgrove could help take Auckland to the next level, especially with his aerial threat. He struggled to get into last Saturday’s match in Melbourne, with play not really coming his way, while at times it looked like he was trying too hard.
But it often takes some time for strikers to settle in the A-League, while his partnership with Guillermo May is expected to build gradually, after the Uruguayan’s injury-interrupted pre-season. Saturday’s first home game against Western Sydney Wanderers (5pm) could be lift-off time for the Yorkshire-born Cosgrove but he isn’t one for grand personal ambitions – not yet, anyway.
“For me, it’s getting myself integrated in the team, securing that No 9 spot and playing as many games as I can,” he said. “If I’m playing games, week in, week out and I’m scoring goals on a consistent basis, we will hit the team goals that we want and that in turn means that I’m hitting my personal ones, because being part of a successful team is the main thing for me.”
Michael Burgess has been a Sports Journalist for the New Zealand Herald since 2005, covering the Olympics, Fifa World Cups, and America’s Cup campaigns. He is a co-host of the Big League podcast.