I am saddened today to hear of the death of Sir Bobby Robson, former manager of the England Football team as well as various high profile clubs across Europe. He first came properly into my radar when I was twelve and he was managing the then unfashionable Ipswich Town. My cousin Kim supported Ipswich and the 1978 F.A Cup final they won against Arsenal was the second Wembley game I can remember watching live on television (the first being the previous year’s final in which my team, Liverpool, lost to Manchester United).
The first half of the 1978 was a cagey affair, as I recall it, with more action coming from shots of Bobby Robson twitching characteristically in the dugout than from the pitch. At half time Kim and I went for a quick kick-about in the field behind our Nan’s garden, to relieve the tension. Second half, out of the blue, Roger Osbourne scored for Ipswich Town and the Tractor Boys held on to win the cup.
Under Bobby they went on to be League runner’s up twice and won the U.E.F.A Cup in 1981. A year later England came calling and Bobby Robson took up what seemed at the time to be the greatest challenge of his career. His eight years in charge of the national team are largely remembered for ‘what-if’s’. What-if Diego Maradona’s ‘hand of God’ goal had been disallowed in the 1986 World Cup Quarter-final? What-if West Germany hadn’t won the penalty shoot-out and prevented us from reaching the 1990 World Cup final? Forget our missed penalties, what if Chris Waddle’s shot in extra time had not bounced back off the right hand post but had crept into the goal?
In the end, of course, what-if’s can never be turned into silverware, but Bobby Robson was clearly the best England manager since Sir Alf Ramsey. He was also one of the best club managers in the game too, proving himself at Porto, PSV Eindhoven and Barcelona before returning to England to manage Newcastle United. Here he was less successful but worshipped as a messiah by the Geordie fans. A real one, not a borrowed one like Kevin Keegan, but a genuine Durham born lad.
Sir Bobby will also be remembered for his infectious enthusiasm which was visible to anyone who saw that he really did ‘kick every ball’ from the dugout. Besides this, he was a thoroughly decent man, a throwback to an era when proving your worth in football had nothing to do with the size of your house, the car you drove or the extortionate wages you took home: Bobby was all about fair play, honesty, good manners and retaining a sense of humour even under the most strained of circumstances. Off the pitch he fought cancer four times and won. Sadly it came back a fifth time and finally got the better of him. Football has lost the last of a generation of noble-spirited characters, men who made average enough players work together to create brilliant teams. Today’s young managers would do well to scrap the statistics, the psychology and the dietary science and go back to the sort of basics that brought Bob so much success.
