Bryan Robson was one of the most accomplished midfielders in world football throughout the Eighties and early Nineties and anyone disputing that would have to argue with Alex Ferguson because the Manchester United manager chooses Captain Marvel as the most outstanding player of all the greats he has managed in his 25 year reign at Old Trafford.
To rank above the likes of David Beckham, Peter Schmeichel, Ryan Giggs, Roy Keane, Denis Irwin, Paul Scholes and even Eric Cantona in terms of sheer ability is an impressive endorsement, which is why Robson is still feted anywhere he goes. He got the full star treatment at Fidel Murphy’s on Saturday night, as the latest sporting celebrity brought over by Sunset Football Club for their annual fundraising weekend.
Robson talked about his football life, answered questions, helped auction memorabilia then turned up for the golf day on Sunday. All done with a big smile and usually with a beer in hand too. At 54 he looks good and despite the legendary alcohol intake is still reasonably trim.
Robert ‘Woody’ Woods compered the evening and during the introduction mentioned that Robson was at the time the youngest subject of This Is Your Life at 28.
It all started brilliantly for the young Geordie who began his career at West Brom under Don Howe although a host of clubs wanted him. Robson felt his local club Newcastle United took it for granted he would join them from school and he didn’t like that. West Brom treated the teenager with the most respect and under Howe, who was also involved in the England camp, he thrived.
Johnny Giles was Robson’s next manager at The Hawthorns. “Playing ability wasn’t the only factor under Giles,” Robson said. “Being Irish, he liked you to be able to sing, play guitar and drink Guinness well even though he was strictly a Bacardi man himself. Giles had a really switched on attitude. Ron Atkinson was my next manager at West Brom. He had a reputation of being a champagne lover but we spotted him only sipping it when he was encouraging everyone to chug it down. He just liked seeing people get merry.”
Atkinson’s pot belly and comb over was a great source of amusement, especially when playing eight-a-side. “Big Ron modelled his style on Manny Kaltz, the great German winger who was the best crosser of the ball in the world at the time. Ron so believed his own hype that at one point he really thought he was Kaltz!”
Atkinson put a good team together at West Brom, including the celebrated ‘Three Degrees’ of Laurie Cunningham, Brendon Batson and Cyrille Regis. Robson reckons that Regis, who was a former electrician, was so big and strong that had he had a nasty streak to really use his size and strength, he could have been as good as Alan Shearer.
Robson claimed that after training the team would go to the pub for four or five pints to help gel and improve camaraderie. Woody chipped in: “Well in that case, I wonder why Sunset Football Club haven’t won anything in 20 years!”
Signed by Manchester United in 1981, it was the beginning of 13 eventful years with the Reds although arch-rivals Liverpool were far more successful, including six league titles and two European Cups. Liverpool wanted Robson but were not prepared to pay the $2 million asking price for the 23-year-old which looks like beer money on reflection now.
At international level England had some success, especially at the 1990 World Cup when they got to the semis. Under the brief reign of Ron Greenwood as caretaker manager, Robson used to room with Terry McDermott, but they were split up because he said they acted “too daft” together.
Atkinson was the United boss who signed him and although there was moderate success in the FA Cup, it wasn’t good enough to keep him at the helm. Then the Fergie era began in 1986. “I remember on Fergie’s first day he got all the playing staff together and told them that everybody would have a chance to prove themselves. We were all impressed with that.”
Ferguson also started dismantling the destructive diet and drink culture, even banning sugar from tea and coffee, no salt on food, margarine instead of butter and banishing white bread. He also spent long periods developing the youth teams which obviously paid off a few years later when Beckham and co emerged in the mid-Nineties. “What impressed me was that Fergie remembered most of the youth team names. He had a photographic memory for that. It was that attention to little details that counted.”
As for training with the team, nobody enjoyed playing with Fergie “because he elbowed everyone out of the way!”
When bawling out players, Atkinson would do it from a distance, Ferguson’s hair-dryer habit was directly in the face. Robson noted that Fergie singled out centre halves for abuse so when he suggested Robson should try to become a sweeper he promptly replied; “Not under you boss!”
A great anecdote Robson remembers was when United were losing at half-time and Fergie gave Gary Pallister, the centre-half, such a ticking off that the giant stopper moaned as he stripped down to his jock strap, assuming that he was being substituted. But Fergie was taken into the rest room for some advice by his assistant Archie Knox. Fergie came out and told the naked Pallister as everyone was going back out
to get dressed for the second half.
Fergie controversially left Robson out of the starting line up for the 1994 FA Cup final against Oldham. Robson’s wife Denise famously told the intimidating Scotsman before the game that he was throwing away 13 years of her husband’s career with that decision. Losing 3-2 with 20 minutes to go, Robson was sent on and they ended up drawing 3-3. He was pleased to be selected for the replay despite Keane, Cantona and Andrei Kanchelsis being available.
Often asked who was the best drinker out of Paul McGrath, Paul Gascoigne, Norman Whiteside, Tony Adams and a couple of others from that time, Robson always answers: “I am cos I’m the only one who hasn’t been in a clinic!”
When Gazza moved to Lazio he kept in touch with Captain Marvel. A strange call came early one morning from the crazy Gazza who said that he was not adapting well to the strict regime at Lazio and the players were not prepared to room with him. It turned out that for a laugh, Gazza had set fire to a sleeping player’s pubic hairs.
When Robson moved into management, Gazza was in his Middlesbrough team. Gazza’s antics were by now legendary so when Robson was told by a security man that the new $300,000 coach had been extensively damaged on one side by a player who hijacked it, it didn’t need a stretch of the imagination to guess the culprit.
Gazza was so desperate to get to the village to place some horse racing bets that he hijacked the bus and ripped a side of it open trying unsuccessfully to negotiate around a big boulder at the training ground. “Gazza kept pleading with me not to sack him. It cost him tens of thousands to repair. I hope his horses won that day.”
Robson felt that had Gascoigne moved to Man Utd instead of Spurs, Ferguson would have made him a better player. “Tottenham was full of Big Time Charlies. Flash on the pitch and off it too. I always tried to boot them.”
Robson thought that Gazza was so good that in 1990 he was on the verge of becoming the world’s greatest, even better than Maradona.
Bobby Robson was a superb England manager but awful with names, even his own. One morning, at an England camp in California, the manager said to Bryan: “Morning Bobby.” Bryan said: “No, I’m Bryan, you’re Bobby!”
The fact that Bobby Robson called the England striker Mark Hateley by his footballing father’s name Tony, used to incense Hateley junior. The players teased Mark too by calling him Tony.
When asked who was the worse player to turn out for a top-flight team, Robson joked that it was probably him. “I played for Middlesbrough 11 days before my fortieth birthday at Arsenal so I classify myself as the worst.”
He had a spell managing Thailand, based in Bangkok. “I’ve got some great stories but can’t repeat them here!” One he did tell was about their top striker who missed some training sessions because he had been shot at by gunmen after having an affair with a gangsters wife. When he returned to training, the striker wore someone else’s jersey and made an unsuspecting youngster wear his squad number in case the gunmen came back.
Then came the question and answer session. Robson reckons that Liverpool signing Andy Carroll from his beloved Newcastle was a shrewd move. “Carroll will stop them from being relegated.”
Making Fergie the England manager would not be a good move. “He would pick the absolute worse team so that they would get beat every time.”
Robson thinks the England manager should be English. “We’ve got loads of good coaches and you wouldn’t see the French or Italians picking anyone else but their own.”
He thinks Man City should get Carlos Tevez out as quickly as possible, irrespective of the financial hit. Robson joked that he should be the next Man Utd manager.
He lives near former colleague Roy Keane in England. “Roy would fight anybody. That’s why he’s my mate!”
Robson feels his best club game was when they beat Barcelona 2-1 in the European Cup Winners’ Cup final in 1991, Liverpool’s Jimmy Case was the dirtiest player he faced, not the other Red hard man Graeme Souness. “Case was clever and tough – and deaf. Literally. He wore two hearing aids. So whatever abuse you gave him, he didn’t hear it anyway!”
As usual, plenty was raised from the memorabilia auctioned off. One good sport was Ronan Guilfoyle who paid a high price for an autographed Man Utd shirt. Robson’s fun continued at the Sunset golf tournament at the North Sound Club the next day where 62 participated.
The main organisers of the events were Paul Macey, Neil Purton, Robert Woods and Gary McLean who were all pleased with the overall support.
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