Josh Dacres-Cogley

Dacres-Cogley was born in Coventry[4] and attended Myton School, Warwick.[5] He joined Birmingham City F.C.'s academy in 2011,[6] and took up a scholarship in July 2012.[7] Interviewed in January 2014, the player assessed his strengths as speed, stamina, getting forward and defending, but felt he needed to improve his passing.[2] When some of his peers signed their first professional contracts, Dacres-Cogley accepted a third-year scholarship.[8] He played in the Birmingham team – a mixture of first-team and reserve players – that won the 2014–15 Birmingham Senior Cup,[9] and signed his first professional contract, of one year, a few days later.[10] According to coach Steve Spooner, Dacres-Cogley had an unsuccessful trial with Birmingham as a winger, but when he returned as a full back, "he did very well so we signed him as a scholar. He has really progressed well and worked on his overall game and his variety of passing. That part of game has really come to fruition. He is a wonderful athlete, he's quick and has the ability to get forward and back quickly, which is a prerequisite for a modern day full-back.[10]

He performed well in pre-season matches, and manager Gary Rowett had hoped to loan him out to a Football League team, but an injury prevented any such move.[11] At the end of the 2015–16 season, Dacres-Cogley was an unused substitute for the Birmingham reserve team that lost the 2016 Birmingham Senior Cup final to National League North champions Solihull Moors,[12] and the club took up their option for another year on his contract.[13] Ahead of the 2015–16 season, he was one of three youngsters who began their pre-season training with the first team,[14] and he impressed enough to be included in first-team friendlies.[15] Against Port Vale, he provided the crosses that led to both Birmingham's goals,[16] and a couple of days later was given a squad number.[17]

Dacres-Cogley made his senior debut on 9 August 2016 in the EFL Cup first-round match at home to Oxford United. He played the whole 120 minutes of the match, which Birmingham lost 1–0 after extra time.[18] With Jonathan Spector suspended and Paul Caddis injured,[19] he made his first Football League appearance on 26 November, starting the visit to Brentford at right back. Birmingham won 2–1, and Rowett praised Dacres-Cogley's performance, saying "he played with a lot of composure at times, showed good energy, got through the game in terms of his athleticism and fitness. And when he had to defend and win some headers he certainly did that."[20] Rowett left the club soon afterwards, and his successor, Gianfranco Zola, continued with Dacres-Cogley in the starting eleven for a time, but the team struggled. An experiment with Dacres-Cogley on the right of a back three was not successful, and he made only two brief substitute appearances in the last two months of the campaign.[21][22] In February 2017, he signed a three-and-a-half-year contract with Birmingham.[23]

The arrival of several defensive players during the 2017 summer transfer window pushed Dacres-Cogley down the pecking order, and his first appearance of the new season did not come until December, starting in central defence in a 1–0 loss to Fulham.[24][25] In what remained of the 2017–18 season and the whole of the next, he made four appearances in cup competitions and played just 12 minutes of Championship football.[22]

After playing in Birmingham's EFL Cup defeat at Portsmouth on 6 August, Dacres-Cogley signed a one-year contract extension and joined League Two club Crawley Town on loan to the end of the 2019–20 season.[26] During his third appearance, he fractured an ankle.[27] He returned to first-team action on 1 January 2020, playing the first 71 minutes of a 1–1 draw away to Colchester United.[28] He returned to action in January 2020, and had made 16 appearances by the time the League Two season was first suspended and then ended early because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[29][30]

Dacres-Cogley made his first league appearance for Birmingham for nearly two years when he started at right back and was involved in the build-up to the opening goal in the 2–1 win away to Preston North End on 31 October 2020.[31]