Jimmy Robson - proof that buying experience can work very well

Our former centre forward was featured in a nice Daily Mail article last Saturday. I've only just seen it today and I thought it was worth highlighting a couple of points. What a contrast to today's bloated football finances:

• Jimmy played for Burnley 1956-1965 before going on to Blackpool for three years and then to Oakwell in 1968. He played 87 games for us, scoring 15 goals.
• At Burnley he was in that famous First Division title winning team in 1960 and he played in the European Cup the following season. He also had an FA Cup Final appearance in 1962, scoring against Tottenham.
• Incredibly Burnley were PART-TIMERS when they won the league.
• He was born in County Durham and spent his early years working down the coal mines. Like many footballers of that era he would do a shift underground and then play an evening match the same day
• His First Division pay at the start was £7 per week

Jimmy is 78 now and was guest of honour at Turf Moor for the Spurs match last weekend. He was one of those former top flight great players who came to us at the end of his career (like Barrie Thomas, and later on Allan Clarke and Norman Hunter). He still had plenty to offer and was a real class act in our Fourth Division promotion winning team.

I know these kind of signings sometimes don't come off and I also know that it would cost us a lot of money to sign somebody with his pedigree these days. It would be good though wouldn't it? An experienced forward with a good footballing brain and another one for the midfield area. Just two good signings in January of that ilk and we will be fine.

 

The danger is, and on many occasions to our club’s great cost, signing players in the twighlight of their careers can backfire, Remember Patricks ‘Dead fish eyes’ dressing room speech. Isn’t this why we changed to ‘the plan’ in the first place?

 

A quality player and a real gentleman both on and off the pitch.

 

That view conveniently turns a blind eye to how many young players we have signed who have been bone idle lazy ******** or with whom it has generally just back fired.

Moncur
Ugbo
Jackson
D'almeida
Kpekawa
Mowatt
Williams
Wabara
White
Khan
McCourt
Harris
Tuton
Payne
Lee
Hemmings
Berry
Brown
Phenix
Jennings
Dibble
Cofie
McHale
Frimpong
Jones
Silva

All players under 24 who we have signed in the last 5 seasons who have been either bone idle or useless or a combination of the two.

 

Excellent ball control for a centre forward. Our version of Alan Gilzean.

 

Robbo brought an injection of quality to the side , at the level we were at , even with a lot of mileage on the clock , he was a class act & was a big influence on the side , I loved watching him

 

Yes, he did have all of that plus the First Division and European goals record to go with it. It's funny how memory plays tricks but I remembered him being older when we signed him but he wasn't even 30 when we got him. It was quite a coup for a Fourth Division side to snap up a player of his class. I remember going to Saltergate and seeing him score for us against a very good Chesterfield side.

After us he went to Bury and played mostly at centre half for them, proving his versatility even more. He might even have spent longer in Burnley's first team but for an up an coming young lad called Andy Lochhead who eventually usurped him. If anyone is interested there is a nice profile of him on the following site:
http://www.clarets-mad.co.uk/feat/ed35/jimmy_robsonnbsp_343224/index.shtml

 

How on earth has McHale got in that list?

 

A shift darn pit then a game in the evening?
And Jose says Lukaku is shattered laikin 20 games on the spin
What a ponse

 

It was a different world then. It seems incredible that as late as the early 1960s footballers had to live this way - a "proper" job as well as turning out in front of thousands in a football ground. I had no idea that even at the top level, where Burnley were then, players were employed in this way.

Even into the 70s we found a miner called Mick Butler who was playing for Worsborough Bridge in his spare time. What a find that was and we should have got a lot more than £20,000 for him when he left.

 

Probably not RAY McHale. Wasn't there a youth player recently who came to nothing called Dominic McHale?

 

Loved Jimmy. Terrific player.

 

Imagine that today, Moncur with his NCB donkey jacket on and hair band in working at the side of you on Co'il face. "Tha wa **** today young un"

 

I think we need a top pro, who wants to do coaching badges & get on the managerial ladder in the future, who might be willing to take a pay cut to come & work at one of the top academies in this division. Motivation would be there & the youngsters would have a leader on the park. Who this person might be, I haven't got the foggiest though!

 

Jimmy was my favourite player. I know he was coaching in to his 70s.

 

Yep, good post, all clubs need these legends. My dad, as well as growing up with an older Rimmo in Mapplewell knew Alan Ogley well, who is a Stockport County legend. Bizarrely he suffered from eyesight problems. Remember him keeping clean sheets at Oakwell in the 70's.

 

Signed him at 18 (well about a week before his birthday) and released him a year later. Young kid signed and failed.