A year to the day since Sir Bobby Robson finally lost his battle with cancer, St James’ Park will be a special place as two of his former clubs meet in an emotional friendly. Chief football writer Paul Fraser looks back on Robson’s two spells in charge of PSV Eindhoven.

DURING his time at Ipswich Town, Sir Bobby Robson’s early days in management were noted in Holland. Thirty three years ago, after playing a kind of long ball game the previous season which was adopted by Liverpool, he attracted Frans Thijssen and Arnold Muhren to Portman Road.

With two fine Dutch midfielders bringing a different pattern to that which Ipswich supporters had been used to, they proceeded to win the FA Cup in 1978 and the UEFA Cup in 1981, which was achieved by beating AZ Alkmaar 5-4 on aggregate.

Robson’s card had been marked across the North Sea.

After one further season at Ipswich, eight fraught and difficult years in charge of England, the offer arrived to head for the continent after being informed his contract would not be renewed by the Football Association. Having been vilified for years ahead of the run to the semi-finals in the 1990 World Cup, the lure of trying to revive PSV Eindhoven proved too strong.

During the first of two stints in charge at PSV he was an instant success. Robson might have described his new role as a “culture shock”, but it was a position he soon adapted and warmed to.

Leading Ipswich to unprecedented success might have been achieved with players such as Muhren questioning his tactical nous.

England’s senior squad members were also quite happy to question certain decisions. He had, however, never before encountered the dressing room attitudes he faced in Eindhoven.

After every fixture he would have to deal with moans. Not from the stands – where the norm was the satisfaction of victory on PSV’s route to the Eredivisie title and domestic cup triumph during his tenure – but those he had named on the substitutes’ bench.

Yet, somehow, despite the penchant in Holland for criticism to be made from within the camp, Robson turned initial negative experiences to his advantage.

He might have clashed with Romario, but he learned how to laugh with him and brought the best out of him.

“Romario was a great player but he wasn’t a great player to work with,” Robson recalled in the months building up to his death last year. “In fact, he was a pain in the arse. He didn’t respond to coaching or discipline or anything. He was just sheer talent.

“He didn’t think you needed anything else. In his case, he was right. I’d tell him to do things and he’d just stick two fingers up at me. But Romario taught me a lesson. You can’t change leopards so don’t try.

“Get the best out of him by loving him, not fighting him.

Through Romario, I learned to treat some players differently.

Sometimes in training you have to close your eyes to things. In the end, I realised this fella might keep me in my job. He could change a match in four seconds. I could have strangled him every day but I knew I couldn’t lose him.”

Romario was unquestionably the most difficult player he had under his wing, yet somehow a player who often dictated to his employers when he would work responded exceptionally to Robson’s warmth.

He was not the only one.

Erik Gerets, Gerald Vanenburg, Berry van Aerle and Stan Valckx are all known to have been spotted rolling over the floor giggling at Robson’s mannerisms, which is hardly surprising considering he often greeted his England captain Bryan Robson in a hotel room with the words: “Mornin’ Bobby”.

Robson would say: “No, boss, you’re Bobby.”

It was not just about his success in his first two years at PSV, it was the legacy he left behind when he headed for Portugal and Spain. In Frank Arnesen, one of the key figures in Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea revolution in the last few years, Robson had a homegrown ally.

The son of a miner chose not to take an English assistant with him to Holland after Italia ’90, instead choosing to go it alone and appoint PSV legend Arnesen as his number two initially.

Such a decision reaped immediate dividends in terms of results, but it also paved the way for more than a decade of successful recruitment from a club that should not have had any right to compete with the biggest clubs in Europe for some of the world’s leading talents.

During Robson’s reign, Arnesen and the club’s leading talent-spotter, Piet De Visser, was aware of Romario’s younger compatriot Ronaldo, then a schoolboy.

A raw teenager with incredible ability, De Visser and Arnesen did everything to push through a deal for Ronaldo after the 1994 World Cup, which was two years after Robson had left and made aware of the player’s talent.

The little-known South American teenager with braces and puppy fat was soon playing for PSV, where he scored 57 goals in just 54 games after a £4m move from Cruzeiro.

“People knew there was this special kid in Brazil,” said Arnesen. “They had seen him sit on the bench during Brazil’s victory in the 1994 World Cup. But no one knew how to get him.”

Ronaldo wasn’t owned by Cruzeiro, he was owned by a wealthy South American consortium similar to that which allowed Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano move to the Premier League. “It was a mad adventure and a really strange experience,” said Arnesen. “But that is the way they do things over there, and doing things their way meant we signed one of the best strikers the world has ever seen.”

It was just two years later, in 1996, after Robson had endured contrasting spells in charge of Sporting Lisbon and Porto in Portugal, that the much-loved former England coach had the pleasure of working with Ronaldo.

As Barcelona manager he paid £15m to PSV, with Ronaldo scoring 47 goals in all competitions during his one season at the Nou Camp, also winning the 1997 Spanish Super Cup, Copa del Rey and the Cup UEFA Winners’ Cup in his only season in command.

“As a trainer, without doubt he was one of the greatest in the world,” Ronaldo said. “The best thing about him was his personality, his character – which was brilliant. With him you could talk about anything and everything and he had the ability to put a smile on your face. He was a fantastic man.

He was like a father to me.

Bobby Robson helped me to be consistent and helped me a lot with my career.

“To be playing for a club like Barcelona at the age of 20 is not easy at all. Bobby Robson helped me to deal with this pressure. It was a spectacular year. A year where out of four competitions we won three and came second in the league.”

Robson was named manager of the year in Spain, yet was pushed upstairs to become general manager. He had rolled in after the Johan Cruyff era, a period in which Barcelona became renowned for footballing beauty, and Robson was criticised for doing away with that.

That was the main reason for his switch, with Louis van Gaal moving in from Holland, but the Catalans forever remember Robson’s good grace, which brought the best out of Ronaldo and Luis Figo.

He was, simply, adored.

Robson always preferred coaching, which is why he did not last long in the boardroom at Barca, so he did not have to think twice about returning to PSV when the job came up again. A new breed of talent at the Philips Stadion was to have the pleasure of working with Robson, who guided that crop once again to the Eredivisie title in 1999.

“He was a great man in many respects. He had a nice sense of humour and I respected his qualities as a coach. I will always remember the nice conversations we had,” said Andre Ooijer, who is now back at PSV after a spell with Blackburn. “Players also yearn for a listening ear and he was a good listener.”

Ultimately, that is the message which players from Romario to Ronaldo and fans from the Leazes End to Lisbon will deliver. Mart van den Heuvel, who was with PSV for the two spells, remembers one special moment after a victory over Utrecht in 1999.

“He was a gentleman through and through. I best remember the dressing room stories. With that win we had ensured qualification to the Champions League,” he said.

“There is a law in football that you should put off your mobile phone in the dressing room, but this phone was ringing. He answered the call and told the players to be quiet. Then he ended the call by saying: ‘Thank you for calling me, Mr Pope!”

It will be a special occasion when Newcastle meet PSV at St James’ Park later today, with Robson remaining in the hearts and minds of an Eindhoven public touched from the moment the man from Langley Park, County Durham, walked through their doors 20 years ago.

Harry van Raaij, the chairman responsible for persuading Robson back into club management at PSV in 1990, actually requested time to process the news of the passing of one of his biggest football friends when he was informed of the news 12 months ago.

And Newcastle manager Chris Hughton is well aware of the occasion, knowing how thousands laid flowers at St James’ Park after he lost his long battle with cancer.

“It’s going to be an emotional game,” he said. “It’s one of his old teams and that makes it an even more special day. This club has done a wonderful job for those around the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation to form the links and express in the best possible way what Sir Bobby meant to this football club.

“To have a game of this quality would have meant so much to Sir Bobby. I think it’s something everybody at this club has worked very hard for.

It’s very fitting that we play this type of game on Saturday.”

A fitting tribute, a fitting occasion for the gentleman that was Sir Bobby Robson.