Steve: It’s overhaul to play for at Fir Park
STEVE ROBINSON insists moulding a new team at Motherwell is a breeze after swooping for 23 players over a single summer at Oldham.
Unsurprisingly, he found himself out of a job after only six months with the Latics but Robinson is in it for the long haul at Fir Park.
He has allowed 12 players to leave Well, among them crowd favourites such as James McFadden, Stephen Pearson, Scott McDonald and Lionel Ainsworth.
Six new signings have arrived – including Alex Fisher from Inverness, Gael Bigirimana from Coventry and Trevor Carson from Hartlepool – and Robinson wants at least three more.
The former Northern Ireland No.2 said: “If you bear in mind I signed 23 players for Oldham in three weeks, this is easy.
“There were only three pro players when I got to Oldham so I had no choice.
“There were a few names I didn’t know on the way to Millwall for the first game of the season. It was a difficult situation. This is a lot easier.
“We have signed six so far and if we get to nine or 10 I’d be thrilled. It’s a big overhaul but it was needed. We weren’t fighting relegation for no reason last season.
“The big thing for me is players really wanted to join us. They all had different options in England and up here so it’s a compliment to Motherwell they chose us.”
Robinson freely admits he can’t compete financially with English clubs.
But he said: “Players down there don’t realise how big football is in Scotland, how much press coverage it gets.
“This is a big stage and some people are beginning to see that. They want to come up here because it is a massive opportunity, even if only to get to a better club in England.” THE battlefields of British football are nothing compared to the war zone David Robertson has chosen for his latest managerial mission.
The former Rangers and Aberdeen defender fought for honours at the sharpest end of the Scottish game and also with Leeds in the English Premier League.
However, his latest challenge with Real Kashmir in India is as much a humanitarian job as it is about building a new team, literally, from the rubble of death and devastation.
Robertson and Real Kashmir president Shamim Meraj are currently on a whistlestop tour of Scotland, organising a series of pre-season friendlies this summer as their new side bids to hit the ground running in September in their first full season in the Indian I-League.
Their team of rookie youngsters scouted from the streets of the disputed territory between India and Pakistan have done nothing in football but still, in their early 20s, have seen far too much of the horrors of life.
They have witnessed friends killed in battles with police and their homes in the war-torn land provide little safety from the turmoil when Mother Nature wreaks her havoc.
Srinagar, the city Robertson now calls home, was devastated by floods in 2014 that left hundreds dead and thousands of houses under water.
In January, Robbo gave up a life of comfort in Arizona after a decade as head coach of the Sereno Soccer Club for a post that is already providing as much job satisfaction off the field as on it.
He said: “Football in America is big business and I committed to working in the office during the day and coaching up to three teams at night.
As a coach, my performance levels went down the pan.
“This opportunity came up and Shamim sold it to me as a place where people needed my help.
“I can’t lie, my first couple of days were tough but I was also struck by the smiles on the faces of the kids, 11 and 12 years old, when they turned up to play football in the snow.
“The electricity comes and goes, the internet is patchy at best, but there’s a wonderful humanity and generosity of spirit – some players have even brought flowers to the practice field for me before training.
“It’s not without its humour either. We played a tournament in Delhi earlier this season and I was sitting at the front of the team bus. Suddenly I looked to my right at a crossroads – and came face to face with an elephant on the inside lane.
“On another occasion we were half an hour late arriving for a match because a cow was blocking the road to the ground. They’re such sacred animals no one would get out their vehicles to shoo it along. These are certainly not sights you saw travelling to Hampden before an Old Firm match.”
Shamim owns a newspaper, the Kashmir Monitor, and was inspired to establish the team in the aftermath of the flooding that devastated the region only three years ago.
Along with like-minded supporters they donated money for football equipment and an idea quickly formed to set up a professional club, training on the one synthetic pitch in the city with access to the 30,000-capacity Bakshi Stadium for official matches.
Shamim said: “In 2014, almost everything in the city was under water and my friend Daar and I went for a walk in a local park that had somehow managed to escape the flooding.
“Kids were sitting around, many of them doing dope, and something clicked. Along with other friends we bought and distributed 1000 footballs then took it further by establishing a new club with the local FA.
“The political situation in our region erupted again a month after our formation and our boys were in Delhi playing in the Durand Cup while Kashmir was burning.
“Our players are children of conflict and most have suffered huge stress. They have witnessed all the horrors of war, including the deaths of close friends, crackdowns, political instability, not to mention regular nightly curfews.
“The kids throw stones at police and
The electricity comes and goes, the internet is patchy but there’s a