Tributes were paid to the late Irish international striker Michael Robinson by Graham Hunter today - who says his impact on Spanish football coverage was significant.
Robinson played for Preston, Liverpool and Manchester City among other clubs - before finishing playing with Spanish outfit Osasuna and earning 24 international caps for the Republic along the way. He passed away this week at the age of 61 following a battle with skin cancer.
Hunter told Ger and Eoin on OTB AM that Robinson is revered in Spain and will be sadly missed.
"Michael was one of these guys who was gifted with an awful lot when he was made. His football career, starting from the time when Bobby Charlton knocks at his back door to say 'Go and get your Dad, I want to get permission to sign for Preston North End...'
"...All the way to setting up the winner to take Brighton to an FA Cup final, winning the League, League Cup, and European Cup in Rome... forgetting the trophy in the duty free and being sent back off the plane to get it by Graeme Souness!
"[He was] then important in an Osasuna side that beat Barcelona, beat Real Madrid... even though he couldn't find Osasuna on a map when he first moved there!
"All these things... and the movie-star good looks - what they led to was a guy who said 'My life's not even half-finished now that I've stopped playing football.'
"He became a charismatic and extremely good first-wave football analyser. I still think when Robinson started on Canal Plus here in 1991 he began to offer not just opinion... but [he was] a co-commentator who added value.
"Michael's talents soared. Even when he was extremely high-profile at Canal Plus - he was advising Florentino Perez on whether Steve McManaman would be a good signing from Liverpool.
"When you met him, either over goldfish-bowl sized gin and tonics, or on the road... he was an ideas man as well as a tremendous football analyst.
We would like to express our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Michael Robinson, one of the unmistakable voices of our sport. His last game was the one we played against his beloved Liverpool. May he rest in peace.
— Atlético de Madrid (@atletienglish) April 28, 2020
"He had a hypnotic TV presence, the camera liked him, his voice, his delivery, his articulacy, the fact that he was extremely fluent in Spanish.
"Not only were the front pages of the papers full of testimony to his greatness when he passed too early the other day, there were many Spaniards I knew who had nothing to do with this industry texting me to say they had lost the voice of their childhood, the man that guided them from infancy to grown-up life watching the football that they loved.
"We all know that sensation of losing a voice that has been with you throughout your life, a voice you cherish. But those who knew him queued up to give testimony.
"Really I think you can use the word that this was a man of 'greatness.' A man of huge spirit, charisma, good looks, talent. I don't know anybody who didn't enjoy his company.
"It feels like a cruel loss, and Spain was really, really afflicted. This was a Leicester-born Irishman who wasn't treated as a pet foreigner, by Spain he was treated as 'one of us.'"
19 November 1980; Michael Robinson, Republic of Ireland in action against Cyprus, World Cup Qualifier, Group 2, Rep of Ireland v Cyprus, Lansdowne Road, Dublin. Picture credit; Ray McManus/SPORTSFILERobinson's former Liverpool teammate Graeme Souness was another who paid tribute following his death.
"He took himself off to Spain, played at Osasuna in Spain and then he's created a life for himself in the media out there and he was extremely popular in Spain. He phoned me up one Friday afternoon - he used to go for these long Spanish lunches - and he was celebrating.
"He got back to his office, because he'd been out for lunch with Seve Ballesteros. He was walking down the street in Madrid and half a dozen people stopped and asked him for an autograph and only one asked Seve. He was rejoicing in that. He was a proper, proper man.
"He was a close pal of mine and I'm absolutely sick for his family. It's a sad day for me. I have tried to ring him a couple of times in the last couple of weeks. Michael was a very emotional man and he wouldn't pick up the phone any more to me.
"It was only last night that I'm thinking - 'I'm going to try him and try him until I get him and I thought I won't ring him now because he may be in his bed and I was going to ring him today'. And I've not got the chance to speak to him."
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