The grand old man who left an indelible impression

BOBBY ROBSON couldn’t always be there in body for the Republic of Ireland but he was always there in spirit.

There are any people in the world of football who can claim long and close associations with Robson but we, in the Irish press corps, are not among them. However, even in the tragically short time he moved among us, the grand old man made an indelible impression.

Perhaps the classic memory is from an afternoon late in November 2006 when, having only recently recovered sufficiently from surgery on a brain tumour to permit him to link up once again with Steve Staunton and the Irish squad in Portmarnock, he held a gaggle of us spellbound as he recreated the battle of Paul McShane and Jan Koller in the previous month’s 1-1 draw at Lansdowne Road.

With a round table pressed into action as a makeshift tactics board, Robson enthusiastically deployed a squat pepper shaker as the debutant Irish defender and a plastic water bottle as the giant Czech striker. One journalist had to quickly grab his tape-recorder as it too threatened to become available for selection. No matter, Robson simply press-ganged a convenient Lucozade bottle and a salt-shaker into action to complete his Irish back four.

That was captivating enough, but it was Robson’s recollection of Kevin Kilbane’s goal in that game — a match he’d been obliged to watch on television at his home in Durham — which really set the room alight.

“Let me tell you something,” said Robson, who was then 73. “I’ve been in football a long time and I’ve never seen a goal provoke such an emotional reaction from everyone. I mean, I jumped out of my chair — and I was bloody paralysed. Someone said to me, ‘I thought you were paralysed’, and I said, ‘Yes, I was, but we just scored’. That was the Irish team celebrating, the Irish country, the Irish public. That’s what we’ve got here.”

The passion, the belief, the humour — it was all totally infectious. All around the table, cynical hacks couldn’t help but smile. And, as you might just recall, smiles tended to be in short supply around the Irish camp in those days, that briefly redemptive performance against the Czechs having come hot on the heels of one of the gloomiest days in Irish football history — the 5-2 humiliation by Cyprus in Nicosia.

Steve Staunton’s regime never really recovered from that low, leaving the FAI to stand accused of having gambled recklessly in appointing the former international player as manager, with Robson as his consultant. Whether the gamble might just have paid off had serious illness not restricted the latter’s hands-on involvement is something we will never know. But what we do know is that, at a time when Staunton was exposed to some of the most cruel lampooning ever directed at an Irish sportsperson, Robson — in so far as it was physically possible for him — remained a staunch ally of the man he always called Stan.

Of course, having suffered himself at the hands of the press as manager of England, Robson knew the territory only too well but, at least in public, always retained his dignity. As he told us in Portmarnock that day: “You’ve got your jobs to do. Your job is quite different to ours. I understand the job you have to do, but you’re different people to us. You knock us down, we build it up. It’s true.”

Paternalistic but never patronising, Robson remained loyal to Staunton to the end and, yesterday, the former Ireland manager returned the compliment with an emotional tribute.

“He’s going to be a sad loss to football,” said Staunton. “He was a great man, well regarded and revered throughout the whole world, not just England and Ireland, the whole world. His achievements in football — well, there aren’t many above him, that’s for sure.

“He fought his illness with great courage but that was the measure of the man. He never wanted to let anyone down and I remember him trying to get on planes that even I was trying to persuade him he shouldn’t take.

“I’d met him before the Ireland job — you get to know people in football — but I count myself lucky I’ve been one of few who had the privilege of working beside him and getting to know him personally. I’m grateful for that. His knowledge of football was outstanding but he was always a modest and gracious man who would go out of his way in many different ways to help people.”