Bryan Robson, the former Middlesbrough manager, was back at his old club last week and Martin Walker was there to hear all about his times at the Riverside

VALENTINE'S DAY might be a few days away yet, but there was a lot of love for Bryan Robson when he joined a host of ex-players to celebrate Middlesbrough’s 20 years at the Riverside Stadium.

Captain Marvel was Boro’s 38-year-old player-manager when Steve Gibson made the bold decision to leave Ayresome Park, the club’s home since 1903, for a plush new arena at the deserted Middlehaven site on the banks of the River Tees in 1995.

More than 20 years later, 200 fans joined Robson and some of the squad who starred in that first season at the Riverside for a reunion dinner, aptly held in the Riverside’s Legends Lounge, and organised by the Middlesbrough Former Players’ Association.

Despite the lack of silverware and a relegation, Robson’s time as manager was a golden era for the club – described by the evening’s PA Mark Page as “possibly the best period in the club’s history” – which brought the likes of Juninho, Emerson and Fabrizio Ravanelli to Boro.

Three cup finals. The three points scandal. Players going AWOL. It was seven years of non-stop entertainment.

Robbo is clearly still highly thought of on Teesside, and rightly so. Chairman Gibson remains an admirer and close friend, and ahead of the reunion dinner, he invited the former England captain to Rockliffe Park to meet Boro’s current manager, Aitor Karanka.

“I had a very good chat with Aitor,” revealed Robson. “He’s very confident in his squad. He seems a really level-headed bloke and a good coach.

“He’s done a very good job here, you can see the squad developing and improving, so I think Boro have got a great chance of getting promoted this year.”

Boro fans will, of course, be hoping Karanka can emulate Robson’s achievements and get their club back in the big time this season.

But who could have predicted the rollercoaster journey Boro were about to embark on when Robson first took the reins in 1994?

The Chester-le-Street-born ex-Manchester United midfielder says he sensed something special after first meeting with Gibson.

“As soon as Sir Alex (Ferguson) said I could leave United, I had ambitions of being a manager, but I still wanted to play,” explained Robson.

“I was fortunate enough in that a few clubs were interested. I spoke to Blackpool, and then Wolves showed me plans to re-design Molineux and really have a push.

“But when I met Steve, it was different. I could see his background of being a Boro fan and a really successful businessman, and I saw how passionate he was in our meeting, in how he wanted to take the club forward.

“I believed him more than the other two clubs, and I thought it was a challenge that I fancied. I looked at the Boro squad and I thought, ‘Steve has promised me a couple of million pound, we could add a couple of Premier League players and we’d have a really good chance of being successful’.

“But it wasn’t just that, it was the plans for the new stadium, the ambitious plans for Rockliffe Park, I knew he was deadly serious, and that’s what brought me to the club.”

Robson won promotion in his first season as player-manager as Boro moved to the Riverside Stadium for the 1995-96 Premier League season.

The last man to score at Ayresome, John Hendrie, joined the likes of Chris Freestone, Andy Campbell, Graham Kavanagh, Curtis Fleming, Craig Hignett, Micky Barron, Steve Vickers and Alan Miller as well as coach Gordon McQueen and physio Bob Ward at the Riverside reunion.

“Steve Gibson and Bryan Robson were the best things to happen to this football club,” Hendrie told guests, who quickly applauded in approval, before going on to tell one story which couldn’t be published.

Part-way through that first season, Robson brought the Brazilian footballer of the year Juninho to Boro, and then in 1996 he persuaded Ravanelli – who had just won the Champions League with Juventus – to come to Teesside in a £7m deal.

His famous shirt-over-the-head goal celebration was performed three times in his first game as the White Feather scored a debut hat-trick against Liverpool.

But the infamous, moody Italian was well-known for the problems he caused off the field.

“Ravanelli was great, but he was a little bit difficult for some of our boys, especially the aggressive ones,” said Robson.

“But I had no problem with that, because if I’d been a player and I was captain of our team I would have knocked him out.

“The problem with him was he was selfish. It was all about him, and not the group. Whereas with Emerson and Juninho were really with the group and it made it easier for the British boys to take them to heart.

“Ravanelli used to do it on the pitch but during the week he was a pain in the a***.”

Robson left Boro in 2001 – unusually, he held an emotional media conference to announce his departure – and was replaced by Steve McClaren, who went on to become technically the club’s most successful manager after winning the League Cup (Boro’s first and only trophy) and guiding them to the UEFA Cup final.

But many fans still rank Robson as their greatest-ever manager in terms of his exciting brand of football and the profile he brought to Teesside.

• The Riverside reunion dinner was organised by the Middlesbrough Former Players’ Association, which is run by ex-players Alan Peacock and Gordon Jones, former commercial manager Graham Fordy and former communications manager Dave Allan.