HE MADE YOU FEEL SO GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF
Excellent new film reveals the life and love of Sir Bobby Robson
HE inspired Pep Guardiola to become a manager. He recognised the footballing nous, long before anyone else, of Jose mourinho. He rescued alan Shearer’s career, made Gary Lineker’s what it was, and quite possibly saved Paul Gascoigne’s life.
yet Sir Bobby robson didn’t want to be remembered chiefly as a football man. The cancer research unit in newcastle which bears his name, for which he tirelessly raised funds despite being assailed by the disease, is now one of the foremost in Europe. That, he hoped, would be his greatest legacy.
We all know robson was special, but quite how special is underlined in an enthralling, uplifting and moving new documentary which is being given a limited cinema release next week. Bobby Robson: More Than A
Manager has no narrator. it relies on the recollections of the man himself, the testimonies of those who knew and loved him, and on marvellous archive footage.
There is a poignant clip of his father, Philip, who used to take the young Bobby from their home in a County Durham pit village to St James’ Park on Saturdays. They were always first at the newcastle turnstile, three hours before kick-off.
robson became a fine player, first as a clever inside forward, later a dependable e right half. in the clip, Philip p recalls his emotions when in n 1950 he waved his boy, overlooked by their beloved magpies, off to distant Fulham. m. ‘i just broke down,’ recalls the e tough former miner. ‘ Was he e going to be all right?’
He was more than all right. He ended up playing 20 times for England (learning of his selection one day in 1957 when he picked up the local evening paper) and went on to have an illustrious career in management, winning friends and influencing people until the day he died, aged 76, in 2009.
yet there is shade as well as light in Gabriel Clarke’s excellent film. robson was devoted to his wife and three sons but didn’t give them enough time and attention. ‘nothing was as urgent to him as talking to someone about football,’ Lady robson (Elsie) says, just a little plaintively.
He would not even prioritise his health over football. robson scrapped with cancer five times in 15 years. in 1995 his surgeon, having just operated on a malignant melanoma in his nose, told him to retire. ‘ They didn’t know Bob the way i knew him,’ says Elsie with a wry smile.
most people in that situation can expect to live for two, perhaps three more years. But robson had another 14 years ahead of him and some of his greatest professional accomplishments.
The film hops around chronologically but covers all the significant phases in the great man’s life.
We see him in 1969 taking the reins at ipswich. The club’s former manager, robson’s boyhood hero Jackie milburn, had said ipswich were going nowhere but down.
But robson revitalised the ailing club from top to bottom; we even see him on the phone, ordering a pre-match snack for his players. ‘Tea and toast . . . and jam,’ he says firmly, a reminder that the arsene Wenger-inspired dietary revolution was some years off, although as one of the players who served him so well for ipswich and England, Terry Butcher, points out: ‘He was miles ahead of his time.’
But he also exuded a quality that great managers had always had. ‘He made you feel so good about yourself,’ says Butcher. His generosity of spirit extended to other managers as well. Sir alex Ferguson recalls robson inviting him, during his early days at manchester United, to an ipswich training session before an Fa Cup tie between the two clubs.
‘i thought, “Wait a minute, what’s he up to?” But that was Bobby robson.’ There was no ulterior motive, no sneaky gamesmanship. Fergie went, and learned from it.
ipswich under robson became a considerable force, winning the 1978 Fa Cup and, incredibly, the 1981 UEFa Cup. in a UEFa Cup match in 1977 they beat Barcelona 3-0 at Portman road.
Little did robson know then that he would one day become Barcelona boss. it is Barca’s slogan, Mes
Que un Club (more Than a Club), that, with a little tweak, gives this documentary its title.
First, though, came his adventures as England manager. ‘Bobby made my career what it was,’ says Lineker, recalling the faith his manager showed in him during the early, wobbly stages of the 1986 World Cup. in 1990 he guided England’s players to within a penalty kick of a final he was convinced they would have won.
in some ways, the post-England period of robson’s career was the most impressive. He managed PSV Eindhoven, Sporting Lisbon, Porto and Barcelona, always doing his best to learn the language. mourinho, the protege and interpreter he took from club to club, says: ‘in Lisbon he was a Lisbon man, in Porto he was a Porto man, in Barcelona he became a Catalan.’
Once installed at the nou Camp in 1996 (a year after he had been advised to retire on health grounds), he told the president to buy the Brazilian striker he’d worked with at PSV, ronaldo. ‘The real ronaldo,’ elaborates mourinho cheekily in the film.
O Fenomeno himself pops up to remember his English mentor. ‘He made me feel calm,’ he recalls.
Calmness is not always easy to find at Barcelona. according to Lineker, who’d played there a decade earlier, it ‘is kind of bonkers, it’s a madhouse’. robson could be kind of bonkers himself, but even he was taken aback when his team won 8-1 and the fans whistled their disapproval, because they hadn’t played in ‘the right way’.
nonetheless, he loved Barca and his players loved him, including Guardiola, now manchester City boss, whose coaching ambitions were ignited by watching the way robson went about his business.
arguably the Barcelona madhouse was never madder than when robson was replaced by Louis van Gaal and kicked upstairs at the end of his single season there. The club had just won a famous treble — but had failed to stop the hated real madrid winning La Liga. The film shows robson pointing out with a rueful smile that it was probably the first time in history that a treble-winning club had sacked their manager. ‘So i’ve made history,’ he declared.
His final job, back at his first love, newcastle, came to an abrupt end with the board hinting that he had ‘lost the dressing room’. it was the cruellest cut of all. Elsie uses the word ‘guillotined’. ‘His world fell apart,’ says his son, mark.
He had become newcastle manager in 1999 and revitalised the club rather as he had 30 years earlier at ipswich. ‘He saved newcastle and he saved my career,’ says alan Shearer.
yet in 2004 he was sacked, having just guided the club to fifth in the Premier League. ‘i don’t think there was a person in the world who could understand it,’ recalls Sir alex Ferguson.
The last five years of robson’s life were consumed by fund-raising, even in the throes of his final bout of cancer, although he found time to look out for one of his old players, Paul Gascoigne. ‘He was on the phone twice a week,’ remembers Gazza, adding that he would sometimes be approached by strangers, making sure he was OK. Bobby robson had sent them.
Perhaps the most poignant observation comes from the marvellous Elsie. He didn’t want to die, he wasn’t ready, but he felt purposeful as he threw himself into raising money for his cancer foundation in those years after he was cut loose by newcastle.
‘He was at the helm of a team again,’ she says.