True, that. His big contribution to Leeds was that he gave them that ‘fear factor’. R.I.P.
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Noooo just opened up AS and saw that Michael Robinson passed away in his battle with melanoma.
Canal+/Movistar partidazo will never be the same. 
DEP grande, top englishmen!
Souness did a great speach on him this morning on the football show. You can see how sad he is at the news of his friend passing away.
Seems like he was a great footballer and carved out a respected sports broadcasting career in Spain.
RIP Michael
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Respected is putting it lightly. He’s adored by every single person who has worked with him in the sports media here. The anecdote Sounness recounts is not surprising at all, Robinson is a cultural icon here and for my whole generation we’ll always associate spanish football with his narration and commentary, la liga without Robinson and Carlos Martínez calling the big matches is not la liga anymore but something else.
That first picture makes me wanna cry 
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Yeah, I actually had tears well up with this. 
@TheSpecialCnut I know you’re not the biggest fan of us spanish but it’s very much worth a listen, same goes for any other spanish speakers around here.
Some great anecdotes, Menotti’s famous “centre a suckling pig to Robinson and he’ll strike it”…
Martínez-Robinson is honestly a great loss to football. 
Played for the Republic of Ireland 24 times mate.
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Whoops. Not sure I’ve ever heard him speak in English, or if he even would have enough of an Irish accent for me to tell, after all those years.
RIP Michael, top Irishman
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Tbf he qualified on the grandparents rule.
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Most ‘Irish’ players did back then.
Not true.
Lots only had to go back one generation.
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Makes much more sense. It’s common in Spain to make the same mistake you guys do in thinking basques, catalans, galicians, canarians, and madrileños are all the same thing but with England and its isles, but to the extent for him to have been called english all these years while actually being born and bred an irishman would be weird.
But most of the 1990 qualifiers weren’t born or raised in Ireland were they? Many seemed a marriage of convenience.
I do remember in the qualifiers back then Ireland were pegging England back in their half dominating possession. I think it was around the time Gazza broke his leg.
“I think I’m also part of Spain…I think I’m also a part and a product of Spain. Your ‘Robin’, your ‘Michael’, your Englishman. I’m a happy man thanks to Spain. In a country where I wasn’t born, I’ve been allowed, through 30 years of my life, to invade your living room, you’ve given me the benefit of the doubt…
“What will be of me, I will decide: because, throughout many days, I hope many weeks, many months, I will decide if within the next 10 minutes I will smile, cry, curse to hell everything that moves, or not. I’ll decide how I will live the rest of my life until science takes from me that protest…
I’ve got absolutely everything. I’ve been downpoured with luck. I’m 61 years old…and they’ve been 61 years of loving, of feeling loved; the amount of happiness, good fortune, and good luck I’ve had doesn’t fit in a lifespan of 61 years. If we were measuring my life by my amount of good fortune and luck, I’m 130 years old. Essentially I’m an extremely happy man, not bitter about anything…I don’t think life owes me anything, but rather, totally the opposite…”
Couldn’t help translating the snippets put up on AS of Robinson’s last radio reflections, 12 days ago. Great stuff from a 61 year old seeing his life cut all too short by melanoma; he’s an example for his sense of humour, love of life, and spirit of friendship and conviviality.
He came to Osasuna without an idea about Spain, or Pamplona; when he first signed for Osasuna, unable to find it on a map, he was worried that he was going to be in a desperately small town. Soon he was loved by people in Pamplona, hugely interested in the san fermines, celebrating his goals with matador moves, etc…he later took a huge interest in Cádiz, on the sea in the south, even trying to track Cádiz blood in his ancestry through some Irish mariner shipwrecked there, as well as strongly involved in the club. All of Spain considers him one of our own and part of the fabric of our culture (except maybe attention whoring and paranoid madridistas and culés who are obsessed with the idea that there is a anti Madridista/anti culé bias, because they can’t help but think themselves the centre of the footballing universe for better or worse, no matter the circumstances).
He’s certainly unique, singular, and a totally exception as far as footballers go, but on the other hand it’s kinda sad to see the progression of British footballers abroad from people like Robinson or lesser so Lineker etc., to Beckham, to Bale…
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The first Spanish tv/documentary I watched when first starting to learn the language was his special on the 2010 world cup, which was simply amazing. I then started watching some of his specials that he’s done with players (the Xavi/Iniesta one is particularly good). His style of interviewing was really special, and you always felt his passion for the game and the country.
Such a shame seeing this news morning
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I’m trying to think of a comparable foreigner in England who has come in and influenced the football culture and the game the way Robinson has here, the only one I can think of really is Arsène Wenger…are there any real important football media personalities to that extent that are from another country, that I’m forgetting?
Even more special when you think of it that way, English is the global language and in theory it would be much easier for a foreigner to come in and really make himself part of the British cultural fabric after playing/coaching football there, yet…
England doesn’t fucking own them! 
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I’d say it was about 50/50 born here or not around then. And most of those not were born to one or two Irish parents.
Anyway RIP to an Irish international I actually hadn’t heard of until today. Sounds like he leaves a good legacy.
RIP Trevor Cherry
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Typical Revie player. Could play and kick like the rest of them.
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Side note, but that England kit in the thumbnail is my favourite ever England kit. Pure class.
I got excited a couple years ago when we released a training top that looked like a modernised homage to this kit, as for a second I thought it was going to be the home shirt. Feel like they missed a trick to create a modern icon of England shirts.
The design isn’t perfect, I’d prefer the red and blue to sit above the badge like on the original, but I think the idea was an absolute winner.
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