Bobby Robson: More Than A Manager review: tough, fair, and inspirational – just like the man himself

I admit I’m not the most objective critic when it comes to Bobby Robson. As a lifelong Ipswich Town fan, some of my happiest childhood memories are linked to Robson’s dream team of the late Seventies and early Eighties: the whole of Suffolk bedecked in blue and white for the 1978 FA Cup Final; his joyful jig across the Town Hall balcony during the 1981 UEFA Cup victory parade; nervously asking for his autograph outside Portman Road one Saturday and getting an avuncular ruffle of the hair to put me at my ease. 

Naturally, it wasn’t all silverware and tickertape. I cried when Town narrowly finished league runners-up in 1981 and 1982, then again that summer when Bobby left to take charge of the national team. He had outgrown us, of course - going onto manage clubs across Europe and steer England through two World Cups - but never lost his connection to Ipswich and is still revered there. He was granted the freedom of the town and made the club’s honorary president, with a stand named after him and a statue outside the ground.

There were three Robson-related occasions in adulthood when I wept like a schoolboy all over again: when Sir Bobby was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at BBC Sports Personality Of The Year in 2007; when he died two years later (I tied my old scarf to the railings around the statue, then bought a half-and-half Ipswich and Newcastle commemorative one instead); and when watching this fine film celebrating his refreshingly ordinary life and extraordinary career.

More Than A Manager is no linear birth-to-death story. Directors Gabriel Clarke and Torquil Jones have cleverly constructed it around Robson’s tumultuous reign as Barcelona coach - “hardest job in the world”, he says, due to the political nature of the Catalan club - flitting from the Nou Camp during the mid-Nineties both back and forwards in time to flesh out the picture.

We hear how a football-mad Durham miner’s son became England’s inside-forward and later manager. Despite multiple setbacks and savage media coverage, he served a remarkable eight-year stint with the Three Lions, taking in Mexico 86 (cue Maradona’s “Hand Of God”) and Italia 90 (cue Nessun Dorma and crying Gazza).  

During the semi-final against familiar foes Germany (“Go out there and be immortal,” he told his team), the camera doesn’t move from Robson’s kind, craggy face during that fateful penalty shootout. What’s happening out on the pitch is instead conveyed by his expression - going from gleeful grin to pained grimace, before sighing and standing up to console his heartbroken players. 

When the tears of Turin dried, Robson hopped between some of the continent’s biggest clubs - PSV Eindhoven, Porto, Barcelona - winning trophies and making friends wherever he went. Finally, aged 66, he came home to his beloved Newcastle United, who his father had taken young Bobby to watch every Saturday as a boy - always waiting as the gates opened at noon to soak up the atmosphere and watch the warm-ups for three hours before kick-off. At St James’ Park, Sir Bobby’s circle was complete. 

The extensive archive footage is hugely evocative. Pitches are muddy, shorts are long, then short. Players sport luxuriant ‘taches, fans wear bobble hats and rosettes. We see Robson phone a café to order a pre-match snack for his Ipswich side: “Just tea, toast and jam.” No protein shakes or superfood salads in those days.

Alex Ferguson, Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho (who Robson pretty much invented by promoting him from young interpreter to trusted right-hand man) queue up to explain how he shaped their managerial careers. It’s all handsomely shot, classily told and subtly soundtracked, with the weighty, well-paced feel of an HBO or Netflix biopic, rather than your bog-standard clips-and-clichés sports doc.

Most of all, what emerges is a portrait of consummate man-manager. Robson could make Ipswich stalwarts like Terry Butcher and John Wark run through brick walls for him. His calm influence helped the teenage Ronaldo (the original Brazilian one, not the preening Portuguese one) blossom into the world’s best player. The two most prolific English strikers of the modern era, Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer, both credit Robson with saving their careers. 

And then, of course, there’s dear old Paul Gascoigne. The troubled genius found his most enduring father figure in Robson, a fellow Geordie, and contributes some of the film’s most moving scenes. "He was phenomenal for me,” says an emotional Gazza. “Under Sir Bobby, I knew I was safe.” Long after Italia 90, when they’d both retired, Robson was still there for his surrogate son, ringing him regularly and sending people to check on the “daft-as-a brush” lad who almost won him the World Cup. 

With the 2018 tournament looming, the current England squad sat down for a screening of this superb documentary at their training camp last week. Let’s hope it inspired them.

It’s not an entirely rose-tinted hagiography - Robson’s shortcomings as a family man are hinted at and we see him lose his temper several times - but the film’s overriding impression is of a devoted, determined and thoroughly decent football man. “I’m immersed in football,” he says. “It’s my God.” Robson never lost that boyish, boundless enthusiasm and it was infectious. 

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He was twinkly-eyed and warm-humoured yet seasoned with grit, unafraid to drop star players or call someone “a silly twot” from the dugout. Playing tough but always fair, this gentleman of the game couldn’t comprehend Maradona’s cheating, or his own shabby treatment by Barca and Newcastle. 

In his final years, fighting cancer for the fifth time, he set up the The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, which set out to raise ￡500,000 for research into the disease. It has now passed the ￡10m mark. We hear at this film’s conclusion how Robson considered it his greatest achievement, above and beyond his footballing legacy. 

As Mourinho says before the credits roll: “A person only dies when the last person who loves him dies.” By this measure, Bobby Robson lives on and burns bright. More than a manager, he was my hero. Thanks for the memories, boss.  

Bobby Robson: More Than A Manager is now available on Blu-Ray, DVD or for digital download from Amazon and iTunes