Sport on TV: Farewell to the man for whom every jumper was a goalpost

The great man of English football, our 'eminence grise', deserved a lot more than the half-hour afforded by the hastily assembled Sir Bobby Robson – A Tribute (Sky Sports 1, Friday). There was a very powerful team of players paying their respects, so many that there wasn't time to tell the story of an extraordinary career that spanned so many generations, from a time when players were on £2 a week to today's multi-millionaires. The only face lacking among the talking heads was the one to whom programme-makers had always seemed to turn in these situations, and that was Sir Bobby himself.

Fuller eulogies will no doubt emerge in the next few days. But here, Italia 90, when a nation's optimism rode higher than it ever has since 1966, was glossed over in a couple of minutes. We were told of the special relationship between Sir Bobby and Paul Gascoigne, how they were like a comedy act during that tournament until Gazza's tears replaced the laughter, but all we heard was a distant echo.

The enduring image is of Sir Bobby's boyish enthusiasm, of a twinkling pair of eyes set beneath that shock of grey hair, set in a face that might have been a thousand years old. Perhaps it was that eternal youthfulness and passion for a little round ball that endeared the man-child Gazza to his mentor as much as the shared roots in the North-east.

Sir Bobby's relentlessly positive attitude as a pundit should not be forgotten either, as his managerial qualities are celebrated. Here was a man who could rise above the abyss that managers find themselves habitually staring into, his humour undaunted and his understanding of the game's vicissitudes intact.

There was room for one charming story from the man himself. He was in the studio before a match at Craven Cottage, where he had taken his first managerial post at the tender age of 34. For once the word "tender" does seem appropriate, for within a year he was sacked by Fulham, the club where he had begun his playing career at the age of 17. "I couldn't believe it," he said. "I came on to the middle of this pitch, alone. There were a few seagulls flying around, that was all, coming off the Thames. I cried, I shed tears. And I thought, 'Right, this will never, ever, ever happen to me again. I vowed myself that I would never get the sack again. I failed, of course. I got the sack at Newcastle..." The Sky Sports team erupted with laughter and Richard Keys spluttered: "You were 71, so you had a fair run."

Don Howe, his coaching ally, also told how both of them had gone door to door, selling machine parts to supplement their meagre £2-a-week wages. Sir Bobby would soon be assembling teams that ran as smoothly as a machine. And surely we would all have been happy to buy whatever the man with the smile and the sparkle came to sell us.