Robson Interview from the Indo.
Staunton: A chip off the old block
Friday February 24th 2006
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Bobby Robson feels that Ireland boss Steve Staunton has 'old school' ideals
Crushed ribs and a burst vein in his leg were Bobby Robson's 73rd birthday gift. But soccer's Peter Pan is ready for Ireland
THE Tyne is churning and dish-water dirty as he leans across the railing, wincing discernibly with the effort.
Five days after his 73rd birthday, Bobby Robson knows what's spinning through your mind. 'Daft old bugger'. He recognises the expression. For half his life, he's been joshing with other peoples' worries and stereotypes. Last week was just the turn of another breezy page.
Took himself to Austria in the company of a son and grandson. Turned back time. It was his first time skiing in 16 years, first time since he was manager of England. So he booked a four-hour tutorial, felt the rush of old energy in his veins and threw himself down the slope.
He grins as he lifts his shirt to expose the strapping on his chest. He chuckles when he unveils the bandage on his right shin. He's like a school-kid showing you bullion from an orchard. Bobby has crushed ribs and a burst vein in his right leg. Two days, two falls.
"Probably doing fifteen to twenty miles an hour you know," he says of the second crash. He's almost snorting now. "And it flippin' hurt." His son suggested to him that he might be the oldest person on the slopes. Bobby scoffed at the notion. If he could, he'd have skateboarded down to the cabin.
He's 73, you see. Going on fifteen.
It's black and anguished in Newcastle, but it's home. He lives eight miles outside this hard old city in England's north-east, just a short drive from Langley Park and the lumpy mining hills of Durham that shaped his childhood and, for a time, looked set to define his life.
Robson spent 18 months, following his father, down the suffocating pits. A trainee electrician learning to walk with a stoop to protect his head from the beams. Maybe 60 years on, his remarkable life still glows with purpose and ambition. Sixteen years a professional footballer, maybe twice that in football management and now, after 18 months of calm, right back in the maelstrom.
Locals mention his new job with Ireland and wish him well with the stilted politeness of people not sure of its detail. All they know is that he's busy and hurried again. "In the last two weeks, I've been to Switzerland, Austria, Madrid, London and Eindhoven," he tells you. "I met a couple of Irish guys in the bar at PSV on Tuesday night. They came up to me to wish me luck with the job. I said to them 'Don't worry about it, we'll do well.'
It's still new and fresh and just a little quirky. Two of his hardest days during the eight years he lived in the madhouse of being England's manager came at the hands of Jack Charlton's Ireland. Jack is a fellow Geordie and a friend. But on those two days, he threw Bobby to the hounds.
His memory of Stuttgart '88 is coloured by personal circumstance. "I think we had eighteen strikes on goal against Ireland's five," he sighs. "We hit the bar, we hit the post. Beardsley put one over the top from six yards. Lineker tried to put one into the corner and pushed it wide. We had chance after chance. It was just one of those days.
"I wasn't aware of what it meant to Ireland to beat us. I just got the criticism because we hadn't beaten you."
Cagliari in 1990 exposed him to the lurid extremes of tabloid journalism. A draw that, at the time, constituted calamity. "I remember, bloody hell, your free-kicks." He is on his feet now, curving his arm to define the arc with which the green missiles came.
"I know Jackie well," he stresses. "He was magnificently crude if you like. Instead of putting the ball in there (curving his hand) where your players could run to head it past Shilton, he would insist that they didn't put the ball in for the runners, but put it into Shilton and knock ball and man into the net. Cascarino particularly.
"It worked. It was a physical game. Jackie played a physical game. I mean we had people like Butcher, but Jackie wasn't putting the ball in to where Cascarino might be fighting him. They were putting it in where Cascarino would be fighting Shilton. Butcher couldn't get to that ball.
"Ireland had this fearful way of playing which was difficult to master. And the pitch was quite difficult. It was so hard, the rain water didn't soak through. So it was quite slippy on top. It ended up that the ball through the air was a better ball than the ball on the ground. So Jackie's way of playing suited the game. But we couldn't play it, not with Lineker and Beardsley. You had the big guys."
The following morning, a headline on the back of The Sun bellowed 'Send them home!' Two weeks later, the world had turned on its axis. "We ended up getting to the semi-final, but they wanted us to be sent home for God's sake. I'll never forget that headline. Bloody Hell.
"Then they had the cheek, when we got to the semi-final, of sending a made-up World Cup medal with a red, white and blue ribbon. I threw it in the bin, then retrieved it. I've still got it."
The memories are distant enough to be light on his senses now. He is especially fond of Charlton and still, occasionally, bumps into him at football functions. "I like Jackie," he says. "He's dead straight, dead honest. I just think he's a top guy in most respects. He was a difficult opponent. He wasn't like Bobby. Bobby was creative, part genius. He's an oh-so-nice person, he's class is Bobby.
