“They were great days, halcyon days,” John Robertson says as the most momentous times of his life unfold again on an autumnal afternoon at the City Ground in Nottingham. The years fall away like leaves that turn and change colour as Robertson recounts his amusing and moving memories.
Robertson was Brian Clough’s favourite player – and the manager often ribbed the slightly chubby, unkempt character of a footballer he compared to Picasso. Robertson, now 62, re-emerges as the star player in an outstanding new documentary about Nottingham Forest’s rise under Clough and Peter Taylor as the club soared from the dregs of the old Second Division, in 1975, to winning the European Cup for a second successive season five years later.
Ten days ago Robertson saw I Believe in Miracles for the first time. The premiere was held at the City Ground, where Robertson played 386 games for Forest between 1970 and 1983 – before moving to Derby County and then returning for a brief second spell with Forest in 1985.
“There was a bit of a tear in my eye when watching it,” he admits. Robertson has survived scarring grief and so he understands the beauty, frivolity and fragility of life. “I don’t want to sound depressing,” he says in his Glaswegian accent, “but the older we get the less tomorrows we have than yesterdays. I don’t want to overdramatise it but you’d go to war with them [his team-mates]. They were a great bunch of lads. You could trust them.”
In Daniel Taylor’s riveting forthcoming book about the years mined by the film, it becomes clear that those at the heart of the Forest surge were convinced Robertson was a better player than various football greats from Real Madrid’s Paco Gento to Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews. John McGovern, who captained Robertson, offers a more contemporary comparison: “John Robertson was like Ryan Giggs but with two good feet, not one. He had more ability than Ryan Giggs, his ratio of creating goals was better and overall he was the superior footballer.”
An afternoon with Robertson stretches far beyond football. The death of his brother, Hughie, a few days before one of Forest’s defining European Cup games, is not mentioned in the film. The struggle of his daughter, Jessica, born with cerebral palsy and who died in 1996 when she was 13, also remains outside the remit of a film which, instead, does justice to a footballing “miracle” conjured up by Clough and Taylor.
Yet the bright light and dark notes of life pour out of Robertson. As a footballer, he had an endearingly infamous reputation for being a heavy smoker. His fondness for a fag continued until 2013 when his heart nearly gave up during a tight tennis match against his former team-mate Gary Mills, who now manages Wrexham.
“I was determined to finish it,” Robertson says. “I won it on a tie-break! When I stopped running [the pain in his chest] stopped. It was only when I started running again that it started up again. My son called an ambulance and when I got to hospital they said I’d had a small heart attack. I’d wanted a fag before I got into the ambulance but they wouldn’t let me. I loved a cigarette but I wanted to play tennis. I knew the fags were doing me no good so I’ve not had one since.”
The work of the great artists, even on a football field, is steeped in hard graft and so Robertson waves away apocryphal tales that Clough would allow him to disappear for a cigarette at half-time. “The only time I remember was when I came back after being at Derby two years. Cloughie said: ‘If you want a fag, you have one.’ That was at Luton and I didn’t play great the second half. Urban legend really.”
Before Clough arrived at Forest in January 1975, after his disastrous 44 days at Leeds United, Robertson had been drifting under the previous manager Allan Brown. “It started badly with Allan,” Robertson remembers. “He said: ‘How you doing, Jimmy?’ I said: ‘It’s John.’ That was me finished with him. He didn’t rate me as a player and he didn’t think I worked hard enough. He was right. I was feeling sorry for myself. It took Clough and Taylor to come in for me to realise my talent.”
Clough understood that Robertson needed to move from central midfield to the left wing. But it was only when Taylor arrived at Forest 18 months later, in the summer of 1976, to reunite a brilliant managerial partnership, that Robertson was transformed from a wasted talent into one of the most influential players in Europe for a few years.
“Peter really tore me apart in Germany [on a pre-season tour in 1976]. I wasn’t living right. I lived the life of a footballer without proving myself to be one. Fortunately, he threw me a carrot. Peter said: ‘Brian and I think you can play … what’s your problem?’ I started to blame everyone else but he said: ‘Nah, it’s you, mate. Look in the mirror.’ The effect was immediate. The next night I came on at half-time and from then on I was not out the side for eight years.”
Robertson pinpoints Clough’s inspirational qualities. “When he shouted ‘John!’ and gave you that little sign [Robertson uses his thumb and index finger to make Clough’s trademark circle of approval] you felt 10 feet tall. The biggest compliment was when, after we had beaten Ipswich 5-0 in the Charity Shield, he just said: ‘You’re a good player, son.’ You think you would be more excited if he was gushing and saying you’re a brilliant, superlative footballer. But he kept it simple. That’s why I didn’t believe the cliche about Cloughie ruling by fear. You can’t express yourself if you’re full of fear. Some people just dig up the negatives. They say: ‘What did you think of Clough calling you a scruffy git?’ I reply: ‘What about the time he said I was like Picasso?’ I knew Cloughie loved me.”
Robertson loves books but he chose not to read David Peace’s The Damned United – a broadly fictionalised account of Clough’s doomed spell at Leeds. Robertson saw the film and he offers a nuanced reaction which pays particular attention to the largely admirable acting. But he makes a clear distinction between the movie and real life. “The Clough I knew came after the Clough of Damned United. They talk about his drinking. Well, I’m sorry, but between 1975 and 1983 I didn’t see it. He liked the odd drink, but he was as sharp as a tack.”
Clough and Taylor could also be compassionate. The most obvious example was evident before the 1979 European Cup semi-final first leg. After the cruel way in which they had lost at the same stage of the competition with Derby County, against Juventus in 1973, they were desperate for Robertson to play against Cologne. Tragedy then struck.
“On [Saturday] 7 April we played at Chelsea. After I got back I went out with a mate of mine, and our wives. We got home from this nightclub around 2am and the phone rings. I spoke to my brother-in-law and he said: ‘I’ve got really bad news.’ I said: ‘It’s my dad, innit?’ My brother-in-law said: ‘No. It’s Hughie and Isobel … they’ve been killed.’ Jesus.”
Robertson rubs his face. Hughie, his older brother, and his wife were both 35. He was driving the Vauxhall Viva that Robertson had given to him after Clough arranged for all the Forest players to receive a new Toyota Celica. Before such generosity Hughie and Isobel had relied on public transport.
“My niece was orphaned,” Robertson says. “She was only eight. I went up to Scotland the next morning and it was very sombre. My mum was in bits. My dad was in bits. In fact my dad only lasted a year after that. He was so devastated.
“We were playing Cologne on the Wednesday and I phoned Cloughie. He and Peter were fantastic. Cloughie said: ‘Do what you have to do, son. You have our best wishes.’ It was a big night for them. They wanted to play their best team but they were more concerned about me.”
It was the funeral the following morning but Robertson’s family encouraged him to play. Forest went 2-0 down on a filthy night. But they clawed back two goals before, in the 63rd minute, Robertson launched himself at the ball to put Forest ahead. “I fucking scored,” he exclaims 36 years later, his voice thick with wonder. “I looked up and said: ‘That’s for you son …’”
His face almost crumples before Robertson laughs. “I’ve never scored a header in my life. A diving header too.”
I’m even more moved after we remember the death of his daughter. “Jessie …” Robertson murmurs. “She’s been gone 19 years. She would have been 32 now.”
When he was still a smoker Robertson would “go up to the cemetery every week on Wilford Hill and have a five-minute smoke with her. I still go most weeks, but I don’t smoke now. There is a great poem on the headstone …”
Robertson recites the words in a clear voice.
Whatever happens
Fire, flood or cold
Travel or trouble or just growing old
Our lives are stitched together by a thread of gold
That cannot change
Whatever changes come
You’re my lass for ever
His words die away. “My wife Sally saw that and I thought it was great. It’s really lovely.”
We talk for another 30 minutes, crisscrossing the years as Robertson recalls his career as a coach – assisting Martin O’Neill, his Forest team-mate, at Wycombe, Norwich, Leicester, Celtic and Aston Villa.
Robertson is also insightful when describing the merits of his two favourite sportsmen, Roger Federer and Lionel Messi.
Inevitably we return to the halcyon days and Robertson talks about the way Forest would prepare for big matches – either going down to a cafe called McKay’s for chip butties or taking a stroll with Clough and Taylor through Amsterdam’s red-light district the night before the 1980 European Cup semi-final against Ajax.
“I swear I wouldn’t swap it for the money footballers make today,” Robertson says. “Never. It was a great life.”
Robertson set up Trevor Francis’s winner in the 1979 European Cup final and scored the only goal against Hamburg a year later as Forest became European champions again. “Things just seemed to go my way. Incredible.”
As we amble around the City Ground, Robertson has the gravitas of a man who has lived a long life. “It’s strange isn’t it?” he says as he reflects on the elation of football and the pain of life. “Chalk and cheese. I don’t know … life just happens. You have to make the most of it.”
Robertson made the most of his extraordinary talent and he is proud when remembering the praise he received from Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley. I take out my phone and show him a quote that features in Daniel Taylor’s book in which Jimmy Gordon, the man who ran Clough’s training sessions at Forest, stressed that, compared to Finney and Matthews, Robertson “had something extra on top”.
He puts on his glasses to read the words. “I never knew that. That means a lot to me because Jimmy was fantastic.”
We begin walking again and Robertson switches back to a swooning appreciation of Federer’s artistry and having “a heart like Muhammad Ali” on court.
He laments his contrasting mental disintegration in epic tennis matches these days against Liam O’Kane, another former team-mate. “Liam plays the big points better than me. You wouldn’t believe the times I’ve been 5-1 up and lost.”
“Do you fancy a game one day?” Robertson asks. I say “Yes” instantly.
Robertson laughs when I warn that I’ll be shouting out Jimmy Gordon’s quote to divert him at match point.
In the Forest car park, the great old footballer plays an imaginary peach of a backhand down the line. It looks like a beautiful winner. Robertson stretches out his hand. “We’ll have a good game,” he says. “That’s all that matters in the end.”
I Believe in Miracles is available on Blu-ray and DVD from 16 November
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