Legendary England football manager Robson passes away

LONDON - Former England manager Bobby Robson died Friday following a long battle with cancer.

He was 76, and had already beaten the disease four times. He died at his home at around 6.30am.

“It’s a sad day,” said Don Howe, who was Robson’s assistant at the 1990 World Cup.

“He was a man of standards. Whatever he talked about or did, he had high standards to do the best he could possibly do and he lived his life that way.

“Having known him since the 1950s when he was transferred from Fulham to West Brom, where I was already, we just gelled together.”

A player for Ipswich Town, Fulham and West Bromwich Albion, he won 20 caps for England, but it was as a manager that he achieved his greatest success.

Taking over Ipswich in 1969, he led them to the FA Cup in 1978, and then to the UEFA Cup in 1981, an extraordinary achievement for a small-town club.

A statue of him stands outside Ipswich’s Portman Road ground.

Always maintaining his belief in attacking football, Robson replaced Ron Greenwood as England manager in 1982.

It took Diego Maradona’s Argentina in 1986 - the hand of God goal and then that brilliant jinking run - to eliminate England in the World Cup quarter-finals.

After three defeats out of three in the Euro 1988, Robson was savaged by the press, but retained his dignity and enthusiasm for the game throughout.

Despite the doubts, he then led England to the semi-final of the 1990 World Cup, where they lost on penalties to West Germany, still their best performance overseas.

He moved on to PSV Eindhoven, where he twice won the Dutch championship, and then went to Portugal with Sporting.

He subsequently led Porto to two championships, before moving on to Barcelona, with whom he won the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1997.

Then it was back to PSV for a season before, as he saw it, returning home to Newcastle United, the club he had supported as a boy.

When he arrived in 1999, Newcastle were bottom of the table, but they put eight past Sheffield Wednesday in his first home game in charge, and survived comfortably.

They went on to finish fourth in 2001-02, and third the following season, earning two qualifications for the Champions League.

Dismissed near the beginning of the 2004-05 season, Robson remained in the club’s affections, and was their honorary president until his death.

“He just mesmerised everybody, it was a pleasure to be in his company,” said the former Newcastle assistant manager Terry McDermott.

“He always had a story to tell, a very amusing guy. Our hearts go out to his wife and all his family.”

A crowd of 33,000 turned out at St James’ Park on Sunday to honour a wheelchair-bound Robson at a charity match between an England XI and a Germany XI, recalling their World Cup semi-final meeting in 1990.

“Sir Bobby is a legend over the world,” said the former midfielder Paul Gascoigne who played in the game.

“He was the one who gave me my first run-out for the England team. When I saw him it was quite heartbreaking to see him that way.”