The opening shot is a close-up of his face and the sound of his throaty, rasping laugh, and that is all it takes for everyone to fall under John Robertson’s spell all over again. There are certain people that others warm to immediately and Robertson is one of them. The council house kid who made one European Cup final winning goal, and a year later scored another one, is quite a narrative. Throw in the fact Brian Clough used to call him unattractive and unprofessional, or the little fat guy, or an unplayable genius, and that Robertson took all of it with quiet good humour, and the story is irresistible.
“You know that programme Everybody Loves Raymond?” Martin O’Neill asks at the end of the BBC Scotland Icons of Football episode about Robertson which airs next Sunday. “Well, everybody loves John Robertson.”
Kenny Burns once said that Robertson’s face was so heavily lined he couldn’t go to the supermarket because he would set off all the barcode readers. That’s what years of heavy smoking can do and Robertson loved his fags so much he would drag on a last one before being the final player out of the tunnel before kick-off. He enjoyed a pint and at times he had the sort of diet which would leave a modern sports nutritionist needing smelling salts. The sunshine? He didn’t like it. Training? It left him out of breath. Clough would berate him for not being able to run or jump properly and Robertson might smile and add that he couldn’t tackle or head the ball either. He described himself as an ordinary Joe with no delusions of grandeur, just a good left winger who was one of the boys. Clough would say: “I only put up with you because you’re a f***ing genius.”
“Good”? Robertson was exceptional. He was two-footed and unpredictable, a fabulous dribbler who released brilliant crosses or weaved through defences to score. Together he and Clough helped Nottingham Forest become champions of England in 1978. Malmo double-marked him in the 1979 European Cup final so Robertson wriggled away from two defenders to fling over the cross for Trevor Francis’s winner.
A year later Clough demonstrated his utterly unshakable belief in Robertson on a television interview on the eve of the second final against Hamburg. It was put to him that the great German right back Manny Kaltz was quite a player. “We have a little fat guy that will turn him inside out. Very talented, highly skilled, unbelievable outside left. He’ll turn him [Clough smirked and leant forward for emphasis] … inside … out.” Robertson carried the ball past Kaltz on the way to scoring the only goal of the final.
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Once, at a Forest fans’ event, the host said he wanted to take Robertson back to that balmy night in Madrid so they could discuss the greatest goal of his career. Robertson stopped him in his tracks. No, no, he said, the greatest was a different goal entirely, a year later, when he scored a penalty for Scotland to beat England 1-0 at Wembley. That realised a boyhood dream.
Robertson is 71 now and he has Parkinson’s disease. His speech is affected at times but he is clear when talking to camera for the Icons episode and can still hold court and reel off his anecdotes and jokes when a few old Forest pals have their cherished Thursday Club gathering in the city every week. His mind and wit are still absolutely fine and he needlessly offers a thoughtful apology in case he cannot be clearly understood over the telephone. Smoking had to end when he had a heart attack in 2013 and he is a bit more conscious of his health these days. “I don’t feel ill or anything like that,” he says down the line. “You’ve got to battle on, don’t you? I’m not going to complain.”
The programme features the tragedy of losing his brother Hughie and sister-in-law Isobel when they were killed in a car crash days before Forest’s 1979 European Cup semi-final against Cologne. Robertson went to Hughie’s funeral on the Monday and played — and scored — on the Wednesday.
Otherwise it is a joyous celebration of a working-class hero, a player cut from the same cloth as another 1980s Scottish hero, the darts player Jocky Wilson, and sharing his universal popularity. Supporters easily identify with a skilful wee winger whose manager would openly joke about what he would be like if only he stopped eating junk food, drank a bit less, cut out the cigarettes, went to bed earlier and lost a couple of stone. Robertson called his autobiography Supertramp and shrugged his shoulders at Clough.
“My mum got more upset about that than me. She’d say ‘Don’t let that man talk about you like that.’ I think she thought it was something against my upbringing. I told her not to worry and to concentrate on the good things he said about me. Without him I would never have had the career I had. No doubt about it.” They had a special bond. He was Clough’s favourite.
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As teenagers Robertson and O’Neill became friends and they remain close pals. When O’Neill managed Wycombe Wanderers, Norwich City, Leicester City, Aston Villa and, most successfully, Celtic, he had Robertson at his side. O’Neill knew that everywhere he went Robertson immediately struck up an easy rapport with people and was “as loyal as they come”.
How did it feel to have the director of the wonderful Clough-era documentary I Believe in Miracles, Jonny Owen, calling him a great human being, or his pal O’Neill coming out with that line about everyone loving John Robertson? “It is a lovely thing to hear. I’m overwhelmed really.” On the programme he puts it even more simply: “Well I am chuffed with that, mate. Thanks very much.”
● All episodes of Icons of Football are available on iPlayer and will also air on the BBC Scotland channel, with the first episode screening on Sunday at 10.30pm. John Greig, Joe Jordan, Willie Miller, Frank McAvennie and Jen Beattie also feature.
