With tomorrow being a rest day in the World Cup finals in Brazil, there will of course be no cook off to be had.
Instead, I have decided to take the unprecedented step and publish on this blog the epilogue taken from the Cookbook. The epilogue is a personal tribute to my father, James Robinson, who sadly passed away on Monday 23rd of June at 14:10. I make note of the time as bizarrely, the nearest carriage clock to my father when he passed on, stopped dead at this time and has not moved since. The clock in question was presented to him, when he was in the Army.
The final chapter in the Cookbook was of course written before he passed away. The Cookbook is a product of Sixty6 Magazine, a football magazine catering for the England national team. With there being no more England games this summer, the closest I could get to pay tribute to my father to reach as many people as possible was via this means.
Please take a moment to read it and reflect on how football can create such passionate, priceless memories and makes it the game we all know and love.
To my Dad - James Robinson. 26/01/1943 - 23/06/2014
The
Sixty6 Unofficial World Cup Cookbook
Epilogue
I released my first book in 2007, when I
was in the Royal Air Force, having spent four months in Afghanistan. The book
was a diary-based account of the football season for my club Sunderland,
including watching their promotion push from 3,000 miles away.
My Father, James Robinson wrote the
epilogue that appeared inside From
Afghanistan to Temazepam and so it is only fitting I stand in his shoes to
write similar notes for this book before you and return the favour to him.
You see my Dad now faces his biggest and
final battle of all – the battle against cancer and I suppose if I am honest, I
am not the best at conveying my emotions, or saying how I feel. And so words written
or typed down from me, is my way of getting it all out there.
A week before the 2013/14 season ended, he
was told his five year fight against the disease only had a matter of weeks,
perhaps months to play out.
Words can not express the pain on hearing
the news and the sudden dawn and realisation that despite him having been ill
for the last half of a decade, he would no longer be around, no longer there to
cast opinion over the football, or tell me to “get my admin sorted” when it
came to the business side of running a football magazine!
People always wonder why football means so
much to me. Well the simple reason is, my sisters nor I would not be here if it
were not for football. You see my Father was in the Army when he came up with
my future Uncle Milton to see his Everton take on Sunderland. There he met my
Mother and the rest is history. Little over a year later they were married and
fate had it that Sunderland played Everton once more, a large percentage of the
congregation attending the match after the ceremony! Bizarrely, Sunderland
played Everton on their 35th wedding anniversary, when they were
treated to a box at the Stadium of Light, my Mum presenting Sunderland striker,
Kevin Phillips with the man of the match award that day.
My Dad took me to Roker Park, Sunderland
for the first time one overcast afternoon to watch the Rokerites (as they were
then known) take on West Bromwich Albion in 1986. Sunderland were on the slide
to the Third Division for the first time in the club’s history and their lowest
ebb to date. It was still early season and we did not know this at the time. My
Dad being my Dad got me to the game late…it wouldn’t be the last time we
arrived at a football ground after kick off.
Sunderland were as miserable as the grey
sky sitting over Sunderland’s former ground that day and lost the game. On
arriving in the Main Stand paddock, my Dad asked a bloke nearby what the score
was having arrived 10 minutes or so into the match. He told us it was still
0-0. We trudged home after a 0-2 defeat, only to see the man who provided the
score on arrival was in fact incorrect, Grandstand showing Sunderland had lost
0-3 instead!
It was a comical beginning to 28 years of
watching football together and life has never been dull since.
In 1992, we shared a moment in time I shall
never forget. Perched high up in the Spion Kop at Hillsborough, Sheffield for
the FA Cup Semi Final between Sunderland and Norwich City, we saw then Second
Division Sunderland beat their top-flight counterparts…again against all odds.
The scenes on the terraces were unreal, as
what it seemed like most of Wearside simply went mad with joy. The whistles
from the fans near the end of the game were deafening as Norwich continued to
attack the Sunderland goal, trying in vain to force an equaliser. After an
eternity, the full time whistle sounded. I was stood at the front of our
section up in the gods, my Dad 2 or 3 people behind, to allow the kids in my
section a vantage point to witness the action.
I turned around to see him raise his
eyebrows in disbelief that Sunderland had made the FA Cup final. No words were
needed, we knew what it meant, his face beaming, his hands held aloft…this
coming from an Evertonian by birth!
12 years later I returned the favour and
got him a ticket for the 2004 FA Cup Semi Final for Sunderland versus Millwall
at Old Trafford. Both teams were in the second tier of English football and
both fancied their chances of reaching the final, but Sunderland were
favourites, having only been relegated from the Premier League the season
before.
The night before I stayed at my parents’
house along with half of the family so it seemed and the wine flowed, a little
too much for my Dad and brother-in-law, Tommy – both of whom were accompanying
me to Manchester the following day. Both men were ill due to drink, both
vomiting up. Come the following morning, my Dad uttered the words no one in my
family will forget of “where’s me teeth?”.
Having worn false teeth for years, it
transpired he must have spat them down the toilet when bringing back up the red
wine he had drank previously. And so after the laughter had died down, we found
a spare set of teeth, in order for him to go to the match.
My Dad (and my Mum for that matter) also
contrived to make me miss a Kevin Phillips goal at home to Southampton at the
Stadium of Light in the most bizarre of circumstances. Sitting there watching
the game in my seat, the tannoy crackles with “could Malcolm Robinson from
Fulwell, please report to the nearest steward immediately!”. As you can imagine
I jump from my seat and find the nearest steward, to be told to be escorted to
the main reception, on which I will get further details.
I was frantic as I raced over to the West
Stand to be taken down to the main reception, as thoughts of any number of
emergencies raced through my mind. As I made my way, I could see my parents
waiting there and asked what the problem was? It turns out they had forgotten
their front door keys and this was the only way they could get hold of me, as
my phone signal was jammed! I was laughing too much to be annoyed; yet on the
way back to my seat, I hear the roar of Sunderland’s second goal of the
afternoon…thanks Mum and Dad.
One of my favourite stories was the time we
got former Everton playing legend and popular Sunderland manager, Peter Reid to
call my Dad during the first period he was unwell with cancer. Now Peter Reid
was one of my Dad’s favourites, obviously having played for his boyhood club on
the blue half of Merseyside and then becoming Sunderland manager in 1995. I
remember the day Reidy was appointed manager, my Dad was overjoyed and said he
would sort the club out once and for all. He was of course correct as Reidy
took Sunderland to the top flight and their highest finishes in the league
since the 1960’s.
I was away in Afghanistan at the time, but
knew Reidy was calling following an interview he did for Seventy3. Like a school
kid I call home to see if he had rang yet, to which my Dad starts to laugh. He
said “you’ll never guess who called tonight…Peter Reid!” It turns out Reidy
called my Dad and said “Hello Jim, its Peter Reid here.” My Dad’s reply being…
“Peter who? Peter Reid, I don’t know any Peter Reids!” him thinking it was
someone local calling. It wasn’t until Reidy added that it was thee Peter Reid,
former Everton and Sunderland, did the penny drop for my Dad.
I will forever be grateful to Peter Reid
for calling that day, it gave an old Evertonian a rare smile at the time and I
am thrilled he agreed to be a columnist for Sixty6 magazine last summer.
Reidy of course starred in Mexico ’86 for
England and this would have been the first World Cup I could remember. Italia
’90 was a lot more clearer and my Dad and I spent many a time, glued to
England’s progress to the semi finals.
Out of all the major International
tournaments, it was most probably the European Championships we spent the most
memorable of times together watching England in front of the box, most notably
Euro ‘96. There was the incredible Paul Gascoigne goal against Scotland we sat
and gawped at in my sister’s front room in Saffron Walden, Essex, en route to
bloody Germany to visit my other sister who lived there. She had just given
birth to my niece, hence our visit, timed just perfectly we had to watch the
England versus Germany Euro ’96 semi final in Paderborn. I will always remember
the natives celebrating their penalty victory, hanging out of cars, blaring on
their horns and we had to travel back to the ferry from Holland the next day in
our English registration plate. That was interesting!
Its funny how I always remember our first
game and have course the memories in between, yet I cannot quite put my finger
on our last game together. I have it in mind as Stoke City at the Stadium of
Light, possibly around 2011. I suppose it never dawns on you at the time that
it will be the last time you go to a game together. I do remember him saying he
would have loved to come to Wembley for the League Cup final for Sunderland
against Manchester City this season, which brought a lump to my throat a few
days before the showpiece game. If only I could have taken him somehow.
Maybe one day you will look down, the day I
take your grandchildren to the game, I sit here, a product of, until the time
we can meet for a pint, put the football world to rights and go to the match
once more, someday, somewhere.
My Dad wrote in his epilogue for my first
book “we are all very proud of you”. I suppose a son never tells his Dad how
proud he is of him back. And so James Robinson, you will never know how proud I
am to call you my Dad, thank you for always being there for me and I love you
with all my heart and always will.
Here’s to New Brighton, the Toffees and the
red and white army in the sky.
Malcolm Robinson, proud son of James
Robinson – the best Dad in the World.
X
Epilogue taken from the Sixty6 Unofficial World Cup Cookbook.
For more information on the book see
www.worldcupcookbook.co.uk
