Sir Bobby Robson

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a footballer. His whole life has been devoted to the game, from his childhood in County Durham to his playing days for England, followed by his long career as manager of some half a dozen clubs at home and abroad, and of our national squad.

Presenter0:43

As a kid he'd kick anything around, including a lump of coal, and used to make a thirty four mile round trip to watch his home side play. He played for Fulham and West Bromwich Albion, and was in the World Cup squads of fifty eight and sixty two.

Presenter0:57

As a manager he took Ipswich to victory in the FA and the UEFA Cups, and throughout the eighties was the man with the second most difficult job in British public life, manager of England. A successful international career followed, and then, aged sixty six, instead of retiring, he returned to manage the side he'd loved since he first watched them play sixty years previously, Newcastle United. Energetic and passionate players have often said they'd go through a brick wall for him. He says it's a tough world, and you don't get to the top without it being rough sometimes. He is, of course, Sir Bobby Robson. And it's been um rough to the end, if the end it is, Sir Bobby, because you were rather unceremoniously sacked a few months ago. Um was that in many ways the unkindest cut of all to end in that kind of way?

Sir Bobby Robson1:45

Well, yes, just about. I was v very disappointed, and actually I was stunned, shocked, uh bewildered. I didn't expect it, but um

Sir Bobby Robson1:56

It is a tough life. You have to win football matches. I was dismissed in August, so we hadn't played too many. Five years I'd been at the club. I loved every minute of it. My father took me there as a boy. He bled black and white, so did I. And I loved the job. And we'd made great progress. So it's still hurting, aren't we? Well, it'll always hurt. Because it was my club, and I loved it very much. But these things happen sometimes in football. They are.

Presenter2:19

So it's still hurting all the time.

Sir Bobby Robson2:32

Unexplainable, I guess, sometimes.

Sir Bobby Robson2:35

I'm getting over it now. My head's much better. You have to look forward, not look back. And I'm doing that.

Presenter2:38

And I'm doing

Presenter2:39

I wonder if it reminded you of the first time you were sacked, because that was many years ago, I think, when you were managing Fulham. That was your first experience of being sacked. Um but you were pretty devastated on that occasion.

Sir Bobby Robson2:51

Yes, I was. Twice in my life. I mean, I I started my professional managerial career with Fulham. So I guess you could say I started my managerial career with being dismissed, and I finished my managerial career with being dismissed.

Presenter3:06

And when you were sacked that first time, you you've um confessed that you you wept.

Sir Bobby Robson3:10

I did. I went, I was a young boy. I was a young man, I should say. Not a boy. I was a young man.

Presenter3:12

Do you have a cottage?

Sir Bobby Robson3:16

and couldn't believe what had happened to me. I was so distraught I actually went on to the middle of the pitch, stood in the centre circle, alone, nobody there.

Sir Bobby Robson3:26

Few seagulls flying around off the River Thames, as you know.

Sir Bobby Robson3:30

And I actually cried out I shed tears that this had happened to me.

Presenter3:34

But it was more than just

Presenter3:37

Sadness at being sacked, wasn't it, or feeling that you'd been wronged. It seems to me, being the kind of guy you are, that you just felt there was a sense of shame about it.

Sir Bobby Robson3:48

Well, you feel as though you've failed, don't you?

Presenter3:51

Hmm.

Sir Bobby Robson3:51

And uh that's very hurtful.

Sir Bobby Robson3:54

And you get

Presenter3:54

And you're going to end up on the dole, which is not something that people from your family did, or do, is it?

Sir Bobby Robson3:58

No, is it? No, that's right. And uh married with three young boys. Uh we were trying to educate the boys properly so they were at public schools with due respect. And of course when I when I lost my job, I didn't have any money. So I had to actually sign on the door and I queued up with all sorts of people.

Sir Bobby Robson4:18

And yes, I was embarrassed, you know.

Presenter4:21

You're not going to end up on the dole this time, I'm sure. Did did you did you weep this time?

Sir Bobby Robson4:25

No, not quite. I was very hurt, but but I was strong enough to to get over it and didn't argue, accepted what ha happened to me and kept my reputation, my credibility, and and my dignity, and and left the club under those circumstances.

Presenter4:42

Tell me about your first record.

Sir Bobby Robson4:44

Well, it's a it's a sorrow called a a it's a very good year and

Sir Bobby Robson4:49

And as it happens, it has it hasn't been one uh a very good year, but

Sir Bobby Robson4:53

It's a beautiful song. I like Robbie Williams and he made um an album not uh not too long ago, Robbie Williams, and he introduced Sinatra into this particular song. So you've got the young voice of Robbie Williams and the mature voice of Sinatra.

Speaker 35:08

When I was twenty one

Speaker 35:14

It was a very good year.

Speaker 35:21

We'd ride in limousines

Speaker 35:27

Their chauffeurs would drive

Speaker 35:33

When I was thirty-five

Presenter5:38

Robbie Williams and Frank Sinatra, and it was a very good year. So, um, tell me about that childhood in the mining village of Sacriston, wasn't it? Dad was a miner.

Sir Bobby Robson5:48

Yes. My father was a miner, worked fifty one years down the mine. The last forty two years of his working life he worked without losing a shift.

Sir Bobby Robson6:00

He went out of the house white.

Sir Bobby Robson6:02

Came home black, like a chimney sweep.

Presenter6:05

It was the tin balth in front of the fire.

Sir Bobby Robson6:06

And the tin bath was in front of the fire. And as kids we were bathed, I think, twice a week, in front of the fire. My father had five sons, five boys, so I had four brothers.

Presenter6:17

And your mum didn't work?

Sir Bobby Robson6:18

No, they never did in those days. There was no work for them. Mum was a housewife, and that was her life.

Sir Bobby Robson6:23

She just look after her boys.

Presenter6:24

And were there many different things?

Sir Bobby Robson6:25

And she was always home, so whenever you went and came back, mum was always home.

Presenter6:26

Be aware.

Presenter6:29

And what do you feel that did for you then?

Sir Bobby Robson6:31

Well, family is the most important thing in your life. It's more important

Sir Bobby Robson6:35

than work, I guess. You know, mum was reliable and uh constant and my father was a terrific father.

Sir Bobby Robson6:43

Uh we didn't have much money. We had handed down clothes, obviously, with five sons. I suppose that was an advantage in our house. I grew up feeling very well taken care of and very much loved.

Presenter6:56

And you were taken to the football. It was your dad who took you on this thirty four mile round trip, was it?

Sir Bobby Robson7:00

Yeah.

Sir Bobby Robson7:03

Well well, I wouldn't know. All I know is that um dad every home match at Newcastle, Dad managed to take one of my brothers, Ron and I, to go to Newcastle uh on the bus. We would go into a shop called Fennex, where they had a bit of a restaurant. He would somehow buy

Sir Bobby Robson7:21

tea for three of us and two uh ham buns each. Can you believe that? That was a real treat and would get to Saint James's Park and would be first at the stadium. You know, seriously, really, my father and my brother Ron and myself were the first in the queue at Saint James's Park before the gates opened.

Sir Bobby Robson7:40

Fifty years later, I was manager of the club. I mean, my father would have loved it. He hasn't he hadn't he didn't see that, unfortunately.

Presenter7:46

But he must have been one of the first to spot your talent for the game.

Sir Bobby Robson7:49

Oh yeah, because he used to come and watch me play schoolboy football. I played for the local village team, Langley Park Juniors. He never missed a match. He travelled away to all the away games.

Presenter7:59

But the idea that you would become a professional footballer must have been anathema to him. I mean he wouldn't he wouldn't approve of that, would he? No, I wouldn't say that.

Sir Bobby Robson8:07

But when I left uh school at fifteen and a half, I went to work down the pit. I went down the shaft every day of my life for a year and a half, from fifteen and a half to uh seventeen years of age. I had to make sure that the cold cutters and all the electrical equipment and all the lighting was working. So I was an electrical engineer and he insisted that when I went to F to Fulham in London.

Sir Bobby Robson8:28

I kinda go with my c my my apprenticeship.

Presenter8:30

He wanted you to keep your trade.

Sir Bobby Robson8:32

Well, he he he was worried that I wouldn't make the grade. He worried that I would break my leg.

Presenter8:34

Yeah.

Sir Bobby Robson8:37

He he worried in that sense, and he just wanted me to have a second bow to my life and that I had security.

Presenter8:43

Record number two. Tell me about that.

Sir Bobby Robson8:45

It's a it's a tune.

Sir Bobby Robson8:48

A song that I've

Sir Bobby Robson8:49

I've known for a long, long time. It's a stirring song. It's an emotional song. It makes the hairs on my neck prick up.

Sir Bobby Robson8:57

It reminds me of war and sadness and and I can listen to it every day. And it's a beautiful song, and it's by Elgar.

Presenter10:04

Part of Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations, played by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. You've um taken various of your footballing squads and boards down the pit on occasions, haven't you, Bobby? What's what's been the point of that?

Sir Bobby Robson10:19

Yes, I once took the whole Ipswich Town Football Club board of directors down a mine, put knee pads on them, put a great big alkaline battery on their back, put a tin helmet on them, and put the lamp in the tin helmet, and we t I took them down the mine.

Presenter10:36

But why did you want to do it? What did you think it would show them or teach them?

Sir Bobby Robson10:40

Well, like I'm saying, the other side of life.

Sir Bobby Robson10:43

The unpleasant side of life, the tough side of life. And

Sir Bobby Robson10:48

I think people who who play in football

Sir Bobby Robson10:51

Love their life and love their jobs, and they get up every day and they enjoy g going there. I did. I mean,

Sir Bobby Robson10:57

But not many people in this world get up every day and want to go to work and go to a job which is going to give them a great deal of contentment and happiness and and safety.

Presenter11:05

But it's more than that, isn't it?'Cause footballers these days, you know, live in mansions and have flash cars and diamond studs in their ears. Is there part of you that kind of thinks that's well, slightly disapproves of that then?

Sir Bobby Robson11:18

Well, I never had it. I'm not uh jealous of that, by the way. But I sometimes think the present day footballer just doesn't appreciate the life football gives them.

Sir Bobby Robson11:27

They do earn a lot of money they earn maybe in some cases too much, and they get it too early, and they don't know what to do with it.

Sir Bobby Robson11:34

You know, they'd never had a wage packet of seven pounds a week. I went into football and seven pounds a week. Two pounds fifty I spent on my digs, so I had no money. But as you know, nowadays we have nineteen year olds who drive in in BMWs. That's the norm, by the way. Do you think that's bad for them? I do, yes. I just wish they would appreciate it. I don't think they do. I think some do. You know, you can't tie them all with the same brush. But many don't appreciate it.

Presenter11:58

There's a story, isn't there, that sums it up about you being asked to turn back the team bus because one of your players left his diamond in the dressing room.

Sir Bobby Robson12:03

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 112:04

Yeah.

Speaker 112:05

Uh

Sir Bobby Robson12:05

I'm actually in the dressing room. Yeah, perfectly true. Halfway home and.

Presenter12:08

Uh

Sir Bobby Robson12:09

Boss and I turned round in a certain place saying, Please turn the bus round. I've left me diamond earring in the dressing room. I said, Tough.

Sir Bobby Robson12:20

Right code number.

Presenter12:21

Number three.

Sir Bobby Robson12:22

I've always liked Peggy Lee.

Sir Bobby Robson12:24

There was once a uh this jockey called Ray Moo how who I used to enjoy very much. And it w this was um Ray Moo's favourite song. It's a funny little song. In fact she talks in the song about going to the circus. So here she is all excited about going to the circus. And she sees the elephants and the bears and whatever she sees. And then she thinks, oh well, it's all over now. It's like so is that all there is to this?

Speaker 312:51

Is that all there is to the circus? Is that all there is?

Speaker 312:58

Is then all they?

Speaker 313:02

If that's all there is, my friend.

Speaker 313:07

Then let's keep dancing.

Speaker 313:11

Let's break up the booze and have a ball

Presenter13:18

Peggy Lee, and is that all there is? So, more than half a century ago it was that you first came down to London, wasn't it? 1950. It must have been a brave decision, and you must have been a pretty lonely seventeen-year-old to find yourself down in Fulham, as we say, having to work all day because your father wanted you to maintain your proper job and train all evening. Must have been tough.

Sir Bobby Robson13:40

Yeah, it was tough. And I was lonely and I was homesick. I had to I have to tell you that and how to get over it.

Sir Bobby Robson13:46

Uh fortunately I I shared a a small room with a a great friend of mine, great footballing friend, Tom Wilson.

Sir Bobby Robson13:54

We should go up to the Dilly, the Piccadilly, and walk around, see the lights, buy a coffee, that's all we could afford. But occasionally we would go to the Palladium, we'd see the stars. I mean, I saw Sinatra and I saw Naking Cole.

Sir Bobby Robson14:07

I mean, I I missed my parents, I missed my brothers, I missed my friends. And life was tough because I had two jobs. I was getting up at six o'clock in the morning, starting work at seven.

Sir Bobby Robson14:16

at Electrical Engineering Company in Victoria. I worked on the Festive of Great Britain side.

Presenter14:20

What you wired?

Sir Bobby Robson14:21

I wired it. I helped to wire it. Finally I I did give up my job because I I knew to do two jobs I was risking both. I wanted to be a good footballer. That was really my ambition. So I persuaded my father to come down to London and he allowed me to actually pack in my apprenticeship as an electrical engineer when I was about eighteen and a half.

Presenter14:40

It was the great breakthrough.

Sir Bobby Robson14:41

Yeah, well that meant I could spend more time at the game, I could train every day with the rest of the players, I could work with the players, I could develop my my technique.

Sir Bobby Robson14:50

And I made it. I'm not saying I hit the jackpot, but I became a very good football.

Presenter14:54

But it's been a pretty single-minded business is my point, isn't it? You and football. I mean, that's absolutely, it's been a straight line, it's been one line.

Sir Bobby Robson14:59

Yeah.

Sir Bobby Robson15:03

Yeah, no no doubt about that. I had I had no distractions.

Presenter15:06

Except you got married, of course.

Sir Bobby Robson15:07

Well, I got married, yes. I went home in my first year at Fulham and met Elsie at a little dance hub which we had in the villages in those days, and uh spent five years in a courtship, mainly through the telephone and writing letters. But I used to keep my little sixpences, you know. In those days you had little sixpences.

Sir Bobby Robson15:26

And I'll say, I've put five in, I can't afford anymore, so I'll have to say bye-bye, good night, see you again, put the phone down.

Sir Bobby Robson15:34

I code number four.

Sir Bobby Robson15:36

Record number four is Ch Chris De Burr, uh, singing The Lady in Red. I'm a bit of a romantic, I guess. I mean, I love love songs and and

Sir Bobby Robson15:46

It's me, and it is, I have to say, one of my favourite songs.

Speaker 315:51

Swear I'm gonna be

Speaker 315:54

But I hardly know

Speaker 316:00

This beauty by my side

Speaker 316:07

Never forget

Speaker 316:13

The way you look tonight

Presenter16:20

Chris De Berg and the Lady in Red. So um Bobby Robinson, you started to play um for England. Yes, I did. You played in the fifty eight World Cup um and then you were in the squad for sixty two, but you cracked your ankle bone and couldn't play.

Speaker 316:27

Yeah.

Sir Bobby Robson16:32

Which is

Sir Bobby Robson16:33

Good?

Sir Bobby Robson16:34

Yes, I did.

Presenter16:35

And that seemed to be the end of that. You never did get to the 66, which as we know was the was the great moment when we won. We won the one and only title.

Sir Bobby Robson16:42

You won the one and only football then though, of course.

Presenter16:44

Yeah, but how sad were you not to do this?

Sir Bobby Robson16:46

Oh particularly when I thought I was good enough to be picked as well, but there you were. You don't know everything in life and the manager is the one who picks and he decides. But uh I was still playing for Fulham in sixty six. I was in the first team. I was playing very well. I was one of the strong players in the team, I guess, one of the

Sir Bobby Robson17:01

One of the strong nucleuses of the team. But I've so he was robbed, really? Well, no, I think so I've ch chose the right uh squad. He won it, so I mean, you can't say he was wrong.

Presenter17:05

Yeah.

Presenter17:10

You can't say he was wrong.

Sir Bobby Robson17:12

And it was it was wonderful to win it in nineteen sixty six.

Presenter17:12

And it was

Presenter17:14

Amazing. But all of the time during this time and you're obviously your father's son, you'd been doing a coaching course, hadn't you, of in various forms?

Sir Bobby Robson17:23

Mainly through Walter Windowbottom, because I remember Walter coming to us in 1961 and saying to Don Howe and I, what are you two going to do when you finish football? And we looked at each other, we said, well, we didn't know, we hadn't thought that far. And he said, well, it's about time you did. So Don Howe and I, while we're still playing, became qualified as Football Association staff coaches. So when I was finished, I had qualifications, you know. And maybe the modern footballer now doesn't have to do that because the time he finishes at 35, he's a multi-millionaire. He'd probably have 10 million, 15 million, 20 million pounds in the bank. So they don't worry about that anymore. And that worries me because I'm just wondering who's going to take the game on. Where are our next coaches and where our next managers are going to come from?

Speaker 117:40

S

Presenter18:02

Next piece of music.

Sir Bobby Robson18:05

Some years ago, UEFA, which is the union of European football clubs.

Sir Bobby Robson18:11

made a compilation of several clubs which had been successful to show on their coaching courses. And in nineteen ninety six, ninety seven, as coach of Barcelona, I won the European Cup Winners' Cup.

Sir Bobby Robson18:25

And thankfully, they chose myself in that particular year as one of their examples, and they put this on tape.

Sir Bobby Robson18:32

And when they showed me this tape, I couldn't believe how stupid I looked, because there I was on the touch line, I was jumping up and down. And I remember very distinctly actually, we're winning War Neil in the final of this European Cupman's Cup.

Sir Bobby Robson18:45

and were on a slender lead and the minutes were dragging them.

Sir Bobby Robson18:48

My team looked as though we were torn a little bit, looking a little bit tired. We only had a one nil cushion. And I'm this stupid football idiotic manager jumping up and down trying to get a bit of extra from the players. And then they put this lovely song, and it's a song I've always liked, but because I'm on this c uh compilation,

Speaker 119:00

Uh

Speaker 319:00

Huh?

Sir Bobby Robson19:06

I had to choose it.

Speaker 319:08

Seeing me so tense.

Speaker 319:12

No self-confidence But you see the winning takes it all

Speaker 319:24

And take it off!

Presenter19:35

ABBA, and the winner takes it all. Do you have to learn the languages then of all these European clubs you've run? Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch?

Sir Bobby Robson19:44

Well, I had to try to speak Portuguese and Spanish, and I did. I mean, I I got by every day with the players on the pitch. The Dutch was very difficult. And everybody in Holland speaks English anyway, so I didn't waste my time on that.

Sir Bobby Robson19:56

You know, some words are very similar. Like, you know, we say very difficult, don't they? But in Spanish that is um mui difficil. So it's a little similar, isn't it? And in Porto was muto difficil. So but very difficult in Dutch was

Sir Bobby Robson20:11

Hail Moolik. Now that's got no bearing on very difficult has it? So it was a nightmare. I enjoyed the football, I didn't like the language.

Presenter20:22

Let's talk about when you were England manager from eighty two to ninety. Now, if ever you needed the skin of a rhinoceros, this was the time, wasn't it? You became public property. You were blamed for everything. I mean, are you still going to tell me it was the best job in the world?

Sir Bobby Robson20:35

It was the most important job in England, and it's the most prestigious job.

Sir Bobby Robson20:41

I did like it. I loved it at the end. It was difficult for the first two years, getting to know the players and to get to know the job because it's quite different to managing a football club where you're at it, working with players day in and day out every day.

Presenter20:55

Well, you don't necessarily have that spotlight, that's the point, isn't it? I mean, you are constantly you take a tremendous amount of stick, don't you, in that case?

Sir Bobby Robson21:02

And I mean like Sven.

Presenter21:04

And I mean, you know, like Sven Goran Eriksen, your personal life was trawled through, wasn't it?

Sir Bobby Robson21:06

Lyrics in your personal life was trawled through, wasn't it?

Presenter21:13

So is it worth it?

Sir Bobby Robson21:15

It is if you win football matches and basically I I did and and and Sren has. I mean Sren hasn't lost too many games, basically.

Presenter21:22

Well, indeed. But in the meantime, of course, while you were still there, you had the hand of God to cope with as well. I mean, you can't bargain for that, can you?

Sir Bobby Robson21:28

Well, yes, two World Cups. In eighty six we went to to Mexico and we did very well. The team it was a good team. We got to the last eight. We played the favourites in Argentina. Uh we were robbed. We were actually cheated by the hand of God. I said it was the hand of a rascal.

Sir Bobby Robson21:45

He was the most uh fabulous player you'd ever seen in your life. He scored a wonderful goal in that particular match against us, but he also cheated us with

Sir Bobby Robson21:54

The hand of God as he compiled it by punching the ball in the back of the net, and it cost us dearly.

Presenter22:00

Still feel bitter about it.

Sir Bobby Robson22:00

Oh, I do, yeah, because

Sir Bobby Robson22:02

We just felt if we could get rid of Argentina in this particular match we would eventually would have to meet Germany, I guess, in the final. But um who knows w you know, if that had if that had happened. But it was not to be, so we got to the last eight. Um we came home

Sir Bobby Robson22:17

But, you know, heads held high, to be honest.

Presenter22:20

But of course, four years later you did meet West Germany in and there was that penalty shootout that had us all hiding behind the sofas here at home anyway. What's it like for the manager in that moment? I mean, what can you do? The feeling of impotence.

Sir Bobby Robson22:35

We had by this time developed a very good team, probably better than the eight the nineteen eighty six team.

Sir Bobby Robson22:42

We knew it might come to penalties. We practiced it.

Sir Bobby Robson22:45

I was very confident about the players we had on the pitch.

Sir Bobby Robson22:48

Lineker, Beaisley, David Platt.

Sir Bobby Robson22:52

Pearce, Chris Waddell were the first five. Pierce, in actual fact, was probably the best penalty kicker we had in the squad, and we placed him at number four. So when he got to three three,

Sir Bobby Robson23:04

with Stuart Pierce to take the fourth penalty kick, I was supremely confident.

Sir Bobby Robson23:09

Good character, tough lad, kept his nerve, didn't think he could miss, but unfortunately he did. He hit a bit of a straight shot. The keeper went one way and saved it with his legs. That's how unlucky we were, and the ball went over the bar. So we were now.

Sir Bobby Robson23:26

After Germany taking their fourth penalty were now four three down.

Sir Bobby Robson23:31

with Chrissy Waddle to take the last penalty kick. And Chrissy Waddle was a very confident player. I mean, he could take penalties in training with his eyes closed and still score. And again, I thought Chrissy would score and he would keep us in the game, but

Sir Bobby Robson23:45

On the night, you know, things get to you, I guess. And he just seemed to l run to the ball, did Chris Waddell. He just seemed to lift his head a little bit as he struck the ball and it went over the bar. And so we were out. And we were a fine team. If we'd won, we'd have meet again fully enough Argentina in the World Cup. And we had a score to settle with them. So there wasn't any doubt in my mind that had we beaten West Germany on that particular day, we would have won the World Cup Cup for the second time. I was very disappointed. I was sad. I could have cried myself, but I knew I couldn't. I went in the dress room after the match. I mean, the two boys, Waddell and Piers, were inconsolable. The the country has to know that.

Speaker 324:25

Yeah.

Sir Bobby Robson24:28

Head down crying tearful.

Sir Bobby Robson24:31

couldn't li couldn't look at me, you know, and all I could do was just

Sir Bobby Robson24:35

put my hand on the on the ba on their backs, on their shoulders, and just say

Sir Bobby Robson24:38

Forget about it. You've done your best, that's all you can do.

Sir Bobby Robson24:42

There's no harm done.

Presenter24:44

Exactly.

Sir Bobby Robson24:46

Well, Nesam Doma means none shall sleep.

Sir Bobby Robson24:51

And that was me in the World Cup, I tell you, in 1990, because for about five weeks I didn't sleep. It was the theme song of the World Cup. The World Cup in 1990 will live with me forever. That penalty situation that I've been talking to you about. I recall that virtually every day of my life. I think about that situation where England could have got to the final of the World Cup. I was in charge, we just didn't quite get there. I'll never forget it. So the song was the theme song from the World Cup, and it will always remind me of one of the greatest and most successful years of my professional life.

Presenter25:55

Lassendorma from Puccini's Turundot, performed by the three tenors, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, with the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorenti and the Orchestra del Teatro del Opera di Roma, conducted by Zubin Mehta. It was during your European career, Sir Bobby Robson, that you discovered you had a very unusual form of cancer. What was it and how did you discover it?

Sir Bobby Robson26:22

I came home one summer when I was working in Portugal to my wife who said, I've arranged for you to see the doctor about your sinuses.

Sir Bobby Robson26:31

I said, what science?

Sir Bobby Robson26:33

He said, Well, your sinuses, you know how you always have a bit of trouble in the winter with your sinuses I said, I haven't got time, Elsie, I've just come home for the summer. To cut a long story short, I went to please her to the doctor's. He said, I have to refer you to an ear, nose and throat specialist.

Sir Bobby Robson26:47

I came home to my wife, I said, There you are now. I've now got to go to an ear nose and throat specialist. I haven't got time to go to the ear nose and throat specialist. L C

Sir Bobby Robson26:54

I went to Plaza

Sir Bobby Robson26:56

He then said, You might need a little operation. We'd clear your sinuses out. I went home to Elsie. I said, Elsie, I've now got to go to hospital to have an operation. I haven't got time to go to hospital, Elsie.

Sir Bobby Robson27:07

And the surgeon said

Sir Bobby Robson27:10

that uh he'd taken a bit of muck out of my nose and he put it on the biopsy, but it looked okay and he'd let me know in three weeks' time.

Sir Bobby Robson27:19

and he rang me the next morning and said, I know where you live. Stay there, and I I want to talk to you. I said, Oh, fine. Came to my house, sat me down.

Sir Bobby Robson27:29

He just said, I've got some very grave news for you. Do you have a malignant melanoma?

Sir Bobby Robson27:34

in your nose, inside your head.

Sir Bobby Robson27:36

I said

Sir Bobby Robson27:38

You mean a tumour? Do you mean a tumour? He said, Yes, it's that's what you've got, and it's malignant. You're very unlucky, it's a two per cent cancer, but you have it.

Sir Bobby Robson27:46

He said, I've got a consultant surgeon coming today to see you. You need an operation yesterday.

Sir Bobby Robson27:52

I couldn't believe him. I said, are you sure? I mean, look at me. I said, look at me. What are you talking to me about? But I had to take note of what he said.

Presenter27:59

Claiming that Elsie obviously had a sixth sense about it, didn't he?

Sir Bobby Robson28:02

Absolutely. Without my wife I wouldn't be here. She saved my life. She made me go. And without that visit to those three people, the doctor, the surgeon, and then the consultant surgeon.

Sir Bobby Robson28:11

And I had an operation within 24 hours.

Presenter28:13

Well then they had to go

Sir Bobby Robson28:14

Well then they had to go through the roof of my mouth.

Presenter28:18

So

Sir Bobby Robson28:18

So they cut me from the my eye right

Sir Bobby Robson28:21

Ran my nose, through my lip, took my teeth out, went through my head and went into the back of my head. This cancer was just under my eye, but inside my head.

Presenter28:29

Uh

Sir Bobby Robson28:30

And they said, and what we suggest you do is you retire. People with this don't go back to work.

Presenter28:35

How long ago was this?

Sir Bobby Robson28:37

It was in ninety

Sir Bobby Robson28:39

Five, nineteen ninety five.

Sir Bobby Robson28:43

I went back with my face still s semi swollen. Could you speak? Uh oh, by this time,'cause I have this obdurator in my mouth. It's like a pallet which keeps my face in position.

Presenter28:54

Would you have to put that in and out?

Sir Bobby Robson28:55

Oh yes, I have to.

Sir Bobby Robson28:56

uh take it out like people have with false teeth. But it's it's more than it's more than just a palate.

Presenter29:01

So it goes up behind your nose along.

Sir Bobby Robson29:01

Goes up behind your nose. Yes, it fits into my face. And I have to clean it out every time I eat. I clean it out three times a day. I get on with my life, Sue. I can talk, I can drink.

Sir Bobby Robson29:11

And I can live a life. You just don't like being defeated, do you? No, no. And I went back to work in October and uh here I am, still looking for a job.

Sir Bobby Robson29:21

What? Seven, eight? No, more than that. So you are still looking for your job.

Presenter29:23

So you are still looking for a job.

Sir Bobby Robson29:25

Well, see what happens.

Presenter29:27

Oh well, there's obviously something going on. There's a twinkle in your eye.

Sir Bobby Robson29:29

There's a twinkle in your eye.

Sir Bobby Robson29:34

No, I just feel I've got another job somewhere, no, another two years. I'd like that, but I I'm not I'm not going to take the wrong job, I'll just wait for the right job.

Sir Bobby Robson29:42

Okay.

Sir Bobby Robson29:44

Record number seven.

Sir Bobby Robson29:45

Body white

Sir Bobby Robson29:47

Whose voice I love, just the way you are, which is a lovely song, a lovely melody, lovely words.

Sir Bobby Robson29:54

And it reminds you differently of your loved ones.

Speaker 329:57

So I might not see the care.

Speaker 330:03

I don't want clever.

Speaker 330:07

Conversation

Speaker 330:10

Don't want to work that hard.

Speaker 330:14

No love.

Speaker 330:16

I just want some

Speaker 330:19

Someone to talk to

Speaker 330:23

I want you just the way you are

Presenter30:27

Barry White, and just the way you are. I'm not sure I can visualize you alone on a desert island, sort of kicking half a cocoanut around or something. What what are you going to do with yourself there, Bobby?

Sir Bobby Robson30:38

Well, I'll have to keep myself occupied, so I'll need a big thick book. Do you want me to tell you what the book is? Yeah, why not?

Sir Bobby Robson30:45

Well, I'd like a book of the wars of the twentieth century.

Sir Bobby Robson30:49

I haven't got the book, so one I should buy. It's John Keegan's History of the First and Second World Wars.

Sir Bobby Robson30:58

I don't know much about those wars. I wasn't alive for the fourteen, eighteen, but it must have been traumatic. It must have been just dreadful.

Sir Bobby Robson31:07

I mean, how soldiers and and men and young boys lived through those days I will never, never know.

Presenter31:13

And what would be your reflections on, well, I suppose on the world of football as you sit on your desert island, you know, and the way in which it's changed, as we've been saying throughout this programme?

Sir Bobby Robson31:25

Well, I know about that. I mean, I've lived that life. So and every day I know how the game has changed, how it's g changed financially, how it's changed uh technically. I mean a good game today

Presenter31:26

So I'm not sure.

Sir Bobby Robson31:35

A brilliant game today, Arsenal versus Manchester. Charlton Adley playing Leicester is a better game today than it was 30 years ago. But in many, many ways I feel I've seen the best of it where it was a sport and people understand about losing, because the game is about winning and losing. Now, unfortunately, nobody now at the moment understands about losing. They can't take it.

Presenter31:58

Last record.

Sir Bobby Robson32:00

Well, I went to America a few years ago and I took my wife and I went to New Orleans. I'd never been to New Orleans. And I went to a little place. I'd read about it, a place where Louis Armstrong had started. It was a it was a small little theater, if you could call it that, called Preservation Hall. And Louis Armstrong, ah, I mean, what an artist, what a voice. And this song.

Sir Bobby Robson32:23

We have all the time in the world just makes me relax, it makes me sit down and just contemplate life and I look back over my life.

Sir Bobby Robson32:30

Unfortunately I haven't got all the time in the world. It's kinda diminishing, but I do love the song.

Speaker 332:35

We have all

Speaker 332:38

The time

Speaker 332:40

In the world.

Speaker 332:43

Just for love.

Speaker 332:46

Nothing more.

Speaker 332:48

Nothing less, only love.

Presenter32:54

Louis Armstrong and we have all the time in the world. Well, if you could only take one of those eight records to your desert island, Bobby, which one would you take?

Sir Bobby Robson33:04

How It Takes Sinatra's and Robbie Williams.

Presenter33:06

Yeah, double the value there, double the value. Yeah, it was a very good year, you're taking.

Sir Bobby Robson33:07

Double the value.

Presenter33:11

Um and what about your luxury?

Sir Bobby Robson33:13

Well, if I'm gonna sit on a desert island and read a thick book

Sir Bobby Robson33:18

I would need something very comfortable, I think, to lie on, so I'd take the biggest, most comfortable, softest sun bed that money can buy.

Sir Bobby Robson33:27

With a a sun hood, obviously to protect the sunshine on my head all day, because I want to be nice and comfortable.

Sir Bobby Robson33:34

and I would happily see out the rest of my life reading John Keegan's History of the First and Second World Wars in a comfortable position.

Presenter33:44

Sir Bobby Robson, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Speaker 133:55

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.