Bobby Robson: More Than a Manager review – portrait of an England icon

01 June 2018 10:00
José Mourinho leads the tributes in this uncompromising and elegant doc about a man who rose above football’s ruthlessnessA slickly produced – but heartfelt and passionate – profile of Bobby Robson, the avuncular football manager who in 1990 came this close to getting England to the World Cup final for the first time since 1966. More Than a Manager is a cut above the usual sports biog: by kicking off with a gruesome account of Robson’s operation for a life-threatening nasal melanoma shortly before landing his job at Barcelona, it introduces grace notes of mortality and suffering into the usual mix of archive clips and talking heads.Robson, all agree, was an absolute gentleman who took his eventual humiliation at Barcelona’s hands with fortitude, as well as managing to swallow his rage over Diego Maradona’s notorious “hand of God” goal in 1986. Happier times were found at Ipswich in the 1970s and early 80s (the same proving ground as Alf Ramsey, the only England manager who can lay claim to a superior achievement), as well as a late spell at his home-town club, Newcastle United – though again he was forced to take football’s remorseless corporate brutality with magnanimity. Continue readingreadfullarticle

Source: TheGuardian