When he was at the helm of Newcastle United, Sir Bobby Robson seemed like a man from a different age: standing for decency and dignity even while the footballers around him obsessed about rising wages and the bling lifestyle.
On one level he was celebrated as a football purist: successful and stylish at Barcelona, Ipswich and in Dutch club football, and a man who coped with disappointment and setbacks at England and Newcastle while remaining committed to the game as entertainment, rather than an exercise in win-at-all-costs and by any means necessary.
He was maligned by the tabloids during his tenure as England manager – some even called for his head on the eve of his greatest tournament, taking England to the World Cup semi-finals in 1990.
But in his dotage, even those red-top tormentors recanted and recognised him as a man of passion and character, who always said of his players that you learn more about them in defeat than you do in victory.
The 1960s story he recalled of learning of his sacking as Fulham manager from an Evening Standard billboard as he crossed the Thames on his way to work always struck me as fantastically formative: it was just before Christmas and he had promised a colour television to his sons, so he went cap in hand to a TV rental store and threw himself at the mercy of the salesman. Doubtless he went on to a wealthy lifestyle, but he always carried himself like a man who knew the value of things.
At Newcastle, he arrived with an 8-0 home win. Alan Shearer scored five to welcome him aboard. But after five seasons in which he put the club into the Champions League, he was shuffled off by an impatient chairman, who went on to reap the whirlwind.
The demise of the club he loved will be seen by many as an accompanying morality tale alongside his passing, but he was not only a giant for his Geordie public. He will be rightly mourned across the game.
