The game is better now

Feb 15 2008 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

SIR Bobby Robson made his name taking Ipswich Town to the heights of domestic and European football, but he does not think anyone will ever match his achievements.

Robson has made a handsome living out of the game he loves and, despite all the changes he has seen, believes it is a better game now than the one he first entered as a player for Fulham in 1950.

Nevertheless, he is stunned by the amount of money flying around in the modern era and fears the financial gap between the biggest clubs in the country and the rest means clubs like Ipswich will never be able to compete with them again.

He said: “I don’t think there will ever be another Ipswich Town. I was there for 14 years and I was given time. You don’t get that much now as a manager because everyone wants instant success, managers come and go so quickly.

“Ipswich were a small town, provincial club, but I built three good teams there. We won the FA Cup, we won the Uefa Cup and we challenged the best teams in the country for the league title.

“For a club like Ipswich to do that again, they would need a very generous benefactor – like a Jack Walker at Blackburn – they would need a courageous and talented manager who was loyal to the club and they would need that most precious commodity, time.

“The thing now is the biggest clubs make the most money so they get the best players. They stay stronger than everyone else because they have the financial power to do that. They take the best players from the smaller clubs and they stop them growing stronger. It’s very hard to compete now.”

Yet, while the game may have lost some of its romanticism because of the huge amounts of money at stake, Robson still believes it is better for it.

He added: “It is a massive global business now rather than just sport, but the speed of the game, the stadia, the physical and technical quality of the players, it’s better than it was. It isn’t to everyone’s liking, but that has been the way the game has progressed.

“The top footballers are millionaires by the time they are in their early 20s, which certainly wasn’t the case in my day. I don’t think any of the top players were millionaires by the time they retired and virtually everyone had to find a job when their playing days were over.

“There is so much money in the game, it is completely different to even 20 years ago. But, despite all the change and the huge amounts of money, I still think the game has changed for the better.”

LUKE EDWARDS