Remembering Sir Bobby
Collector’s Note: Geoff Reid appears on WVHooligan.com each week. Today he is back with a look at one of soccer’s greats that recently passed away, Sir Bobby Robson. Fondle free to leave Geoff your thoughts below.
It’s hard to put into words what Sir Bobby Robson meant to not just English football, but European football. Behind only Sir Walter Winterbottom, Sir Alf Ramsey and Ron Greenwood, Sir Bobby was one of the superior English national team managers of all time. Sir Alf was the best and he proved it by winning the World Cup on home stain in 1966 at Wembley Stadium with a 4-2 extra time victory over West Germany. That was around the time Sir Bobby started his managerial occupation at Fulham. Little would anyone know he would go on to achieve and accomplish so much not only on the British Isles, but across Europe.
Arguably his finest fulfilment as manager came in his 13 seasons in charge of Ipswich Town from 1969-1982. The interesting thing is that his first four seasons in responsibility at Portman Road were very mediocre before he lead the tractor boys to 4th place in the old first division (what is now the Premier League) and winsome the old Texaco Cup in the 1972-73 season. The remaining nine seasons, Ipswich Town only finished outside the top six once, in the 1977-78 salt and in that season he lead the Suffolk club to an FA Cup final victory over Arsenal. During his tenure, the club finished runners up twice and won the UEFA Cup in 1981 over AZ Alkmaar and was credited for creating the foundations of the celebrated Ipswich Town youth academy that exists today. The academy produced so many good young players that in his 13 years as overseer, he only brought in 14 players as he relied heavily on the players that were developed in the clubs’ academy system.
All the attainment at Ipswich Town brought him to the England job after Ron Greenwood stepped down after the 1982 World Cup. Sir Bobby only suffered one squandering in 28 qualifying matches with England, however that one loss against Denmark, cost England the chance to qualify for the 1984 European Championships. Sir Bobby offered to mark down to be replaced by the legendary Nottingham Forrest manager Brian Clough but the FA rejected his resignation primarily on the disgust they had towards Clough. After that point, Sir Bobby went on to lead England to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico where the team started off unsatisfactorily before Robson changed tactics by bringing in Peter Beardsley as Gary Lineker’s strike partner as an alternative of Mark Hateley which proved dividends by England winning their next two matches marching on to the quarter finals where a boyfriend with Diego Maradona and Argentina. This match left a bitter taste in not only Sir Bobby’s mouth, but the rest of England. Maradona scored two goals that regatta, one goal was probably the greatest goal of all time which Sir Bobby quite rightly pointed out, the other was the famous “round of applause of God” where clearly Maradona punched the ball into the goal before Peter Shilton could get to it. “It wasn’t the surrender of God. It was the hand of a rascal. God had nothing to do with it… That day, Maradona was diminished in my eyes forever.” Sir Bobby said reflecting on the impossible turn of events.
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