September 3 - Walking in a Robson Wonderland

IT is fair to say that Freddy Shepherd is not everyone’s cup of tea, or bottle of Brown Ale for that matter. The former Newcastle chairman probably did the best thing for relations between himself and the Geordie faithful by selling his stake in the club earlier this year, and stepping down as chairman.

Whether it was calling Geordie women “dogs”, ridiculing club legend Alan Shearer as the “Mary Poppins of football,” or even laughing at Newcastle’s own fans for shelling out vast amounts of money for replica shirts, Shepherd was not what you would call a people’s chairman.

It was on this day in 1999 when Shepherd made one of his better decisions when he appointed fellow Geordie Bobby Robson as manager.

This appointment followed the disastrous flirtation the club had with European coaching - Ruud Gullit had been in charge for only a year and was sacked for not only failing to get the club anywhere near the top of the table, but also for the cardinal sin of dropping Shearer.

Only a few seasons prior to this the club had been challenging for honours under Kevin Keegan, but Kenny Dalglish and Gullit had all but undone KK’s hard work.

Sir Bobby meanwhile had just returned from his managerial spell on the continent which took in successful spells at PSV, Porto and Barcelona, and despite being 66 years-old he couldn’t resist the chance to revive the fortunes of his hometown club.

And revive them he did. In his first match in charge, at home to Sheffield Wednesday, Newcastle ran out 8-0 winners - a club record winning margin.

After steadying the ship Robson really got the team firing on all cylinders and despite not being able to remember the name of any of his squad members, he led the team to fourth in 2002 earning them qualification to the Champions League. Robson bettered the feat the following season, finishing third.

Robson is also credited with extending Alan Shearer’s career by changing his method of play and getting Craig Bellamy to do his running.

Despite this, and in a series of event that exactly mirrored those that saw the departure of Robson’s predecessor, Sir Bobby was sacked by Shepherd one day after leaving Toon favourite Shearer on the bench for the game away to Aston Villa.

Shepherd said he was reluctant to sack Robson. “I didn’t want to be known as the man who shot Bambi,” Shepherd said as he cocked his rifle and trained the cross hairs on Sir Bobby.

Shepherd’s next two appointment’s failed to come anywhere near matching Robson’s achievement’s at the club, with both Graeme Souness and Glen Roeder sacked after short tenures, before current incumbent Big Sam Allardyce was appointed in the summer.

As for Sir Bobby, he seemingly cannot give up the game, and even at 74 he is still employed by the Football Association of Ireland to act as mentor to rookie manager Steve Staunton.

Have a look at this nostalgic look at Sir Bobby’s Newcastle tenure here, and tune in tomorrow to re-live the moment a certain Liverpool player became rather more intimately acquainted with a goal post than he would have liked.

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