Sir Robert William Robson (18 February 1933 – 31 July 2009) was an English football player and coach. His career included periods playing for and later managing the England national team and being a UEFA Cup-winning manager at Ipswich Town.
Robson's professional playing career as an inside forward spanned nearly 20 years, during which he played for three clubs: Fulham, West Bromwich Albion, and, briefly, Vancouver Royals. He also made 20 appearances for England, scoring four goals. After his playing career, he found success as both a club and international manager, winning league championships in both the Netherlands and Portugal, earning trophies in England and Spain, and taking England to the semi-finals of the 1990 FIFA World Cup, which remained the national team's best run in a World Cup since 1966 until they reached the semi-finals of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. His last management role was as a mentor to the manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, while his final official club job was at boyhood club Newcastle United, which he left in 2004. He held several managerial positions outside of England, most notably one year at Barcelona in 1996–97, as well as stints at PSV, Sporting CP and Porto. He was the last English manager to win a European competition in 1997.
Robson was created a Knight Bachelor in 2002, was inducted as a member of the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003, and was the honorary president of Ipswich Town. From 1991 onwards, he had recurrent medical problems with cancer, and in March 2008, put his name and efforts into the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, a cancer research charity which had raised over £12 million as of March 2018. In August 2008, his lung cancer was confirmed to be terminal; he said, "My condition is described as static and has not altered since my last bout of chemotherapy... I am going to die sooner rather than later. But then everyone has to go sometime and I have enjoyed every minute." He died just under a year later, in July 2009.
Bobby Robson was born on 18 February 1933 in Sacriston, County Durham, the fourth of five sons of Philip and Lilian Robson (née Watt). When he was a few months old, Robson's family moved to the nearby village of Langley Park where his father was a coal miner. Their two-bedroom house had no bath and an outside toilet. As a boy, he was often taken by his father to watch Newcastle United play at St James' Park on Saturday afternoons, requiring a 34-mile round trip. Robson described Jackie Milburn and Len Shackleton as his childhood heroes. Both played for Newcastle in the inside-forward position, the position Robson would later assume during his playing career.
Robson attended Langley Park Primary School and then Waterhouses secondary modern school, after failing his eleven-plus but the headmaster did not allow the school football team to join a league. Instead, he began to play for Langley Park Juniors on Saturday mornings at age 11, and by the time he was 15, he was representing the club at under-18 level. Robson played football whenever he possibly could but left school aged 15 to start work as an electrician's apprentice for the National Coal Board in the Langley Park colliery. In May 1950, Bill Dodgin, the manager of Fulham, made a personal visit to the Robson household to offer Bobby a professional contract. Despite being offered a contract by nearby Middlesbrough, the offer made by Dodgin was too attractive to turn down, so he signed for Fulham and moved to London, playing as a wing half and inside forward. Robson had also interested his beloved Newcastle, but he opted to join Fulham as, in his opinion, "Newcastle made no appreciable effort to secure [my] signature." He also thought he stood a better chance of breaking into the first team at Fulham. Robson had partial deafness in one ear, which rendered him ineligible to be called up for national service.
Although Robson had signed professionally, his father insisted he continue to work as an electrician. He spent the day working at the Festival of Britain site and trained three nights a week at Fulham. Eventually, this took its toll on Robson and he gave up his trade for full-time professional football.
In 1950, Robson made his first-team debut for Fulham, recently promoted to the First Division, in a match against Sheffield Wednesday. He came to regard Fulham as "a nice club, a social club...", but "never... a serious, championship-challenging club". Indeed, he and Fulham were relegated from the top-flight in the 1951–52 season, but he made his return to the First Division, four years later, when he signed for Vic Buckingham's West Bromwich Albion in March 1956. The transfer fee of £25,000 was a club record for West Brom at the time.
He made his West Brom debut in a 4–0 home defeat to Manchester City on 10 March 1956. In 1957–58, he was the club's top league goalscorer; his tally of 24 goals included four in a 5–1 win against Burnley. Often playing as a midfielder, he went on to play 257 matches and score 61 goals for West Brom, and he captained the team for the 1960–61 and 1961–62 seasons. However, in August 1962, he returned to Fulham after a disagreement with West Brom vice-chairman Jim Gaunt over his salary. The ongoing dispute over both minimum and maximum wages in the game, instigated by Robson's teammate Jimmy Hill and the Professional Footballers' Association, combined with the birth of Robson's second son, prompted Robson to demand a higher salary. Gaunt refused to negotiate Robson's contract, so Robson placed a transfer request and was sold to Fulham for £20,000 in a deal which doubled his salary. Soon after Robson joined Fulham, the club sold Alan Mullery and Rodney Marsh, meaning Robson's chances of securing any significant honour there were substantially reduced. Robson himself stated, "In all my time as a footballer, I didn't win a thing."
Despite press reports of interest from Arsenal, and the offer of a player-manager role by Southend United, Robson left Fulham in 1967 and accepted a three-year deal with Canada's Vancouver Royals. He was to be player-manager in their inaugural 1968 season in the North American Soccer League (NASL) and believed it "was a chance too good to miss". He began scouting and holding tryout camps for the new team in late 1967. The position proved difficult; a long-distance joint-ownership agreement gave the Hungarian footballer Ferenc Puskás control over the San Francisco section of the squad, while Robson took care of the Vancouver squad. Robson was dissatisfied by this situation and when, in January 1968, Fulham offered him a contract as their manager, he accepted the position at Craven Cottage.
During his first spell at Fulham, Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956. However, it was during his time at West Bromwich Albion that he graduated to the full England squad, with his first call-up in 1956. His manager, Vic Buckingham, advocated the "push and run" approach to the game, a precursor to "total football", and playing this, Robson graduated to the full England squad in 1956, It was also at West Brom when Robson met future England international and assistant coach Don Howe.
Robson went on to make 20 appearances for the England national team, making his debut in a November 1957 victory against France, scoring twice in a 4–0 victory. Although he made a successful debut, he was dropped for England's next match, against Scotland, in favour of Bobby Charlton. However, Robson was selected for the 1958 FIFA World Cup squad, ahead of Nat Lofthouse and Stanley Matthews, but returned from host nation Sweden disappointed after England were defeated by the Soviet Union in a group play-off match.
Following the World Cup, Robson became an established member of the England squad, enjoying considerable success in a period between October 1960 and March 1961 when he played in six England victories, including scoring a goal in the record 9–3 defeat of Scotland at Wembley Stadium. He was selected for the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, but an injury to his ankle sustained in a pre-tournament friendly against a Chilean club side ruled him out of most of the tournament. As Robson recalled, "I never played for England again... my international career was unfulfilled." His place in the England team was taken by Bobby Moore.