Robbie to me is one of most under appreciated sport people ever in Ireland. We never had any one like him before or since. People criticized him for scoring goals against lower ranked teams, we've proven in recent years that we dont do that easily without him. He got some brilliant and important goals for us too. Will never forget him travelling to an away game for us to play the week his father died, especially when so many players these days look for excuses not to play.
He was and is still ridiculed for saying that both Liverpool and Celtic were his boyhood clubs. I get people in England not understanding that but it always annoys me when I hear Irish people take the p!ss out of him for that. When I was growing up (and Im a similar age to Robbie) I supported United, and like everyone else I knew supported Celtic.
He had an excellent club career, probably was unlucky a couple of times with moves not working out like they should, but he was a high end Premiership striker for a long long time and that takes an excellent player to do.
Revisionism is a hilarious thing sometimes, recently I was talking to a young cousin of mine who was in stitches when I said that Roy Keane was one of the best players in the world when he was top of his game. He had a view that Roy was just a kicker and that Gerrard and Vieria were the 2 great midfielders in England at that time and Roy was a bit crap. Now the kid is only 16 but it maddened me that there was that opinion around. I think Robbie still suffers from that sort of viewpoint. Maybe its because hes Irish and we dont appreciate what we had but year on year he was a regular goal scorer in a top league. He was never an Henry or Van Nistleroy but he was probably at the high end of the next level and thats not bad!