DEATH OF BOBBY ROBSON: IT WAS Diego Maradona's notorious "hand of God" that eliminated England from the 1986 World Cup finals in Mexico – but it was the manager Bobby Robson who had taken them there, advancing one step further to the semi-finals four years later in Italy, only to lose to Germany on penalties.

Although widely lampooned and vilified by the press for his perceived inadequacies, Robson, who has died of cancer aged 76, was the man who brought the national side closer than any other to a repeat of their 1966 glory.

His achievement, however – followed by a successful managerial career at club level – seemed improbable in his early years at the helm of England. Appointed in 1982, he failed to secure qualification for the 1984 European championships in France after a home defeat to Denmark and then got off to a dismal start in the 1986 finals with a 1-0 defeat to Portugal and a goalless draw with Morocco.

Ever thin-skinned in the face of criticism – “Pressure? What pressure?” he once asked a press conference in Mexico City in 1985. “You people provide the pressure. If you didn’t exist, my job would be twice as easy and twice as pleasurable” – Robson responded poorly to the customary savaging by journalists, but was held in high esteem by players and fans alike.

He won cups too – the Uefa and FA cups with Ipswich Town (with whom he went close to winning the league), the Dutch championship twice with PSV Eindhoven, the Portugese league and cup double with FC Porto, plus a further league title there, and three trophies during his single season with Barcelona, including the European Cup Winners’ Cup. And as a player, he struck up a famous partnership at Fulham with Johnny Haynes, with whom he would also later play for England.

Robson was born in 1933 in the village of Sacriston, three miles north of Durham. While working in the mines as an apprentice electrician, he played with great success as an inside-right for Langley Park Juniors, attracting the attention of Newcastle United, among others. But it was the Fulham manager, Bill Dodgin who brought him to London in May 1950. His six years there featured 152 appearances and 69 goals.

In March 1956, West Bromwich Albion paid a club record of £25,000 for him, making him captain and converting him into a right-half. It was in this role he would, in time, re-establish his partnership with Haynes as one of the two midfield players in an England team which had embraced the 4-2-4 formation introduced by the Brazilians in the 1958 World Cup. He stayed with Albion for seven years, playing 240 league games and scoring 61 goals.

The first of 20 England caps came in 1957, when he scored twice in a 4-0 win over France. Robson accompanied the side to the World Cup finals in Sweden in 1958 and in Chile in 1962 but did not get a game, the 21-year-old Bobby Moore being preferred at right-half. After the tournament, he was transferred back to Fulham and retired in 1967.

In the summer of that year, he had his first management experience in Canada with the Vancouver Royals, but after six months he returned to Fulham as manager. The club was in a trough and he was dismissed after only 10 months, moving to Ipswich Town.

Initially, Ipswich played the kind of long-ball game at that time espoused by Liverpool. But Robson changed to a more deliberate style after he had signed two Dutch midfielders, Frans Thijssen and Arnold Muhren. These two, with their technical ability and passing skills, imposed a quite different pattern on the team, which won the FA Cup in 1978, beating Arsenal 1-0, and the Uefa cup in 1981, beating AZ Alkmaar 5-4 on aggregate. Muhren would later write scathingly of Robson and his alleged tactical ingenuousness.

Robson took over as England manager in July 1982, replacing Ron Greenwood. It was well known, not least among the press, he had what might euphemistically be called a hectic romantic life, the facts of which would not be laid bare until just before the 1990 World Cup in Italy. His eight years in charge saw him repeatedly plucking triumph from apparent disaster, through luck, as his critics averred, or through sheer resilience, as he would see it.

“We’ve got here. I don’t know how,” he was heard to remark before the semi-final penalties defeat to Germany in Turin in 1990. He had announced his decision to resign before the tournament ended since the FA, after tabloid stories about his private life, had made it clear his contract would not be renewed.

Robson joined PSV Eindhoven in 1990, and in spite of much criticism by Dutch journalists and his players, he won the domestic championship twice. He was sacked two years later, the dismissal coinciding with the first diagnosis of his cancer. This was followed by a move to Portugal, where he did well with Sporting Lisbon, until, when things went against them, he was dismissed, only to be taken on immediately by rivals Porto, with whom he proceeded to win the league championship twice and the cup once.

In 1996, at the age of 63, he at last was given the managership of Barcelona, twice offered to him in his Ipswich days. There he rebuilt the team, signed the young Brazilian striker Ronaldo, whom he had previously appointed at PSV, and led the club to the Spanish cup, the Spanish super cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup in a single season before he was kicked upstairs. He was voted European manager of the year in 1997.

In the middle of the 1999-2000 season, Robson achieved a long-held ambition when he became manager of the team he had supported as a boy, Newcastle United. It was a club in turmoil. Robson quickly restored morale, and turned the previously disastrous season around. Two years later he was knighted. In August 2004, after five years in command, he was dismissed by the club’s controversial chairman, Freddie Shepherd. His position had been rendered untenable when, at the start of the season, Shepherd announced his contract would not be renewed when the season ended. His vast outlay on players had seemed wasteful and relations with Alan Shearer had deteriorated.

In those five years, Robson had initially healed the wounds. But by the age of 71, he found it difficult to motivate his team. Meanwhile, he had modulated from his erstwhile suspicious stance into a genial Grand Old Man of the game. His wife Elsie and three sons, Andrew, Paul and Mark, survive him. Guardian Service