verybody should see the sea, or
a mountain, or walk in the woods
each day of their lives,” Elsie Robson
had told her husband, Bobby. And
so each morning, the former England
boss would drive along the promenade,
looking over his right shoulder at the
endless azure of the Mediterranean
before hitting the motorway to training.
Twice before, Robson had declined
this delightful way of life. He’d rebuffed
Barcelona’s advances out of loyalty to
Ipswich during their early-80s pomp,
and later honoured his national service
with the Three Lions, suggesting Terry
Venables to Blaugrana chiefs instead.
Aged 63, he didn’t say no a third time
in the summer of 1996, although life
in Catalonia wasn’t exactly his way of
taking his foot off the accelerator and
accepting a more relaxing job.
Johan Cruyff had just left the Camp
Nou. Robson couldn’t speak a lick of
Spanish, instead relying on his trusted
translator at Sporting and Porto: the
younger, dashing Jose Mourinho. The
new Barça boss once described himself
as a gunslinger arriving into the Wild
West, and having to convince a saloon
full of towering figures to follow his
lead. Robson was acutely aware of how
intensely integrated the club was to
Catalan culture, likening Barça games
to battles; away grounds to foreign
fortresses to storm. It was also
a fractured city, with the recently
dethroned Dutch sheriff’s
silhouette still looming large.
This town wasn’t big enough
for the both of them.
Someone had to succeed
Cruyff, though, who had been
dismissed after a series of
spats with president Josep
Lluis Nunez. “Robson came
in at a difficult time,” says
defender Abelardo, who
had joined the club from
Sporting Gijon two years
earlier. “Cruyff had been
such a massive part of
Barcelona for getting on
a decade – it was never
going to be easy taking
a job where the previous
coach had established
such a huge reputation.”
Nor was it straightforward
to split Cruyff from the club he
had come to define. The face
of Total Football had become
a mercurial architect in middle
age, reshaping Barcelona in his image
from foundations to skylights. He had
delivered Los Cules’ first European Cup
in 1992 and written the blueprint for
how youngsters at La Masia would learn
to play the game. He wasn’t sacked so
much as overthrown.
“Cruyff was the ghost in the machine –
he haunted my early days,” Robson later
confessed. Cruyff frequently watched
FourFourTwo December 2021 73BOBBY’S
BARÇA