By Mark Murphy

In death, as in life, perspective on Sir Bobby Robson proved elusive.   The headlines screamed “giant” and “pioneer” where they’d screamed “Bungler Bobby” and “In the name of God, GO!!” while he was England manager. The truth was neither.     Watching again Gary Lineker’s affectionate 70th birthday tribute to Robson, I couldn’t help feeling the material was stretching thin long before the end of a not-that-long programme.   Bobby Robson was a gentleman, football man, funny man, if sometimes unintentionally and…well…all those things again.     The descriptions aren’t wrong. Anger “wasn’t him.” An outburst at a press conference announcing his departure from the England job was as shocking as FA Secretary Graham Kelly’s bouffant-hairstyle that day.

There was an enthusiasm which knocked years off him when he was in front of a tactics “board” (a genuine blackboard and chalk at 1970s Ipswich, a flip-chart and marker at plush 2003 Newcastle)

And there were funny stories from Robson-stalwart Terry Butcher about his occasional absent-mindedness.

But the stories weren’t that funny. Being a nice man in football in Robson’s time wasn’t as pioneering as they say.

And the football man might have been as unable to cope with ‘real’ life as Bill Shankly in his forlorn dotage.

This makes me sound like I’ve come to bury Robson not to praise him. But I’m not.

His twelve years at Ipswich were indeed “great,” taking Ipswich to FA Cup and UEFA Cup triumphs when they were infinitely more important competitions than they are today.

And what I saw in many 80s trips to watch England was a team qualifying for tournaments with a conviction and style even Capello is only occasionally matching, to widespread acclaim.

Robson’s only failure was to a Denmark themselves embarking on greatness. Hardly the stuff of “the Frank Spencer of Football”, the Sun’s epithet after a disappointing Euro ’88, in which England still contributed admirably to the game-of-the-tournament, against Holland.

If anything, the modern obsession with everything Premier League at the expense of everything pre-Premier League has done Robson’s legacy a disservice.

The concentration on a moderately-successful tenure at Newcastle denies his Ipswich achievements the lauding they deserve. The flowers and the tears etc… should have been at Portman Road not St. James’s Park.

It’s just that to describe Robson as a legendary great is to put him alongside the Busbys. Steins, Shanklys and, yes, Alex-Bloody-Fergusons.

And that just isn’t quite right. Is it?