Paul Robinson reveals his rollercoaster ride

Mar 23 2008 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

THE banter would have been nothing much new. Perhaps just a little nearer the knuckle than he is used to.

Having starred – infamously – in the last Tyne-Wear derby with much more than bragging rights at stake, Paul Robinson was ready for the familiar ribbing ahead of Sunderland’s potentially pivotal visit to Newcastle on April 20.

But braced for a little bit more.

It would have come with the territory, after all. The territory being neither St James’s Park nor the Stadium of Light, but a building site.

It’s what would have come with going from a boy – “because that’s all I was” – with money to burn and the world at his feet to a declared bankrupt lumping floorboards for a living.

What comes with losing almost everything but life’s fundamentals – his health and his family – in nine eventful years.

Almost everything, because Robinson has now lost the labouring job with which he paid his way back in the house he grew up in, rather than simply draw from the Bank of Mam and Dad.

It’s about the only of his setbacks that he doesn’t blame himself for.

So, as the derby countdown continues, Robinson will no longer set off at 5.45 every dark, cold morning for the two-mile walk to work.

He’ll no longer brace himself for roofers to nail him, brickies to lay it on thick and chippies to be, well, chippy.

No, while the man with whom he is forever associated got pedalling for Sport Relief and prepared to play pundit on derby day, Robinson trod a reluctant path to the dole queue.

He may be immortalised in local football folklore, but he has all too little to show for it.

And yet, as befits a lad once unfazed by the challenge of replacing Alan Shearer, he remains chipper.

After all, he is on his way up from rock bottom and back on the football ladder with ambition, though tempered, still intact.

Robinson crash-landed last January, when a judge at Sunderland County Court – after a case brought by several banks – declared him officially potless.

He was barely 28, and eight months unemployed.

To many, bankruptcy may appear an easy escape route for the feckless and reckless.

But for Robinson, although he owed the banks rather than other people – and only a few hundred quid a month at that – the guilt weighs as heavy as the loads he lugged as a labourer.

“I felt ashamed,” he says. “It was horrible. I felt for my family. I’d let them down and couldn’t look anybody in the eye.

“I didn’t bankrupt myself, it was the banks. They said: ‘If you can’t pay, there’s nothing we can do’.

“I told them I would have loved to pay them back, but I literally had nothing. Not even a fiver.

“I wasn’t working, I couldn’t find a job anywhere and wasn’t playing, so basically had no income coming in.

“I actually have to thank the banks for doing what they did. But I felt worthless.

“I’d been stupid. The money I was on, I should never have gone bankrupt, but I had spent stupidly when I was younger and never recovered.”

It was less than eight years on from the night which seemingly made him, and certainly broke Ruud Gullit, at Newcastle United.

Less than seven years since Robinson himself left Newcastle in a £1.5 million move for London’s bright lights (well, Wimbledon) and a still potentially glittering career.

Needless to say, what happened in between – eight league clubs, several non-league sides and a lot of money, clothes and a BMW come and gone – is a cautionary tale.

But, because of Robinson’s honesty, penitence and, above all, cheeriness, not a sad one.

“I used to blame other people for why it messed up,” he says, on a quiet Wednesday after- noon at a pub near his parents’ home in Seaburn. “I’d point the finger at anyone and everyone around me.

“I know now that is was my fault.”

Neither drink (“although I did go out and get caned sometimes”) nor drugs were among his weaknesses.

But, although it is the reason people may still stand him the odd pint and was the stuff of boyhood dreams, Robinson reckons that playing in that game did him few favours.

“Looking back, the derby probably was a case of too much, too young. The same goes for the move to Wimble- don, but I don’t think I’d have gone there if I hadn’t played in the derby.

“That game made me, or so people thought. It was obviously flattering to be picked and everyone wanted to know about the kid who kept Alan Shearer out of the team.

“But I’d rather have played in it at 26 or 27 years old rather than at 20.

“I’m a Sunderland lad, so I knew how massive the derby was. But I wasn’t ready for all the attention which came with it.

“It was very difficult telling yourself ‘you’re keeping Shearer and (Duncan) Ferguson on the bench’ and not getting carried away.”

Now, Robinson realises defeat that night cast the die for more than just Gullit.

“We lost, Gullit went, Bobby (Robson) came in – and that’s had a bearing on everything that’s happened to me since as a footballer.”

Restricted to fringe first-team action under the new manager, Robinson was further frustrated by a serious knee injury.

Fit again, the offer of regular football at Wimbledon was too good to resist.

“I don’t blame Bobby,” he says. “He came in and put some of the older players back in the team, which was understandable.

“I was a kid who wanted to just go out and play, beat people and score goals. But he had to pick up points and needed lads who knew what the Premier League was all about.

“I didn’t understand that. I was naive to leave as quickly as I did. If I’d known then what I do now, I’d have stayed at Newcastle. But I went, and it didn’t work out.”

And how. Alone in the big city, reality bit hard – and fast.

“I regretted leaving Newcastle within two weeks. Wimbledon were sharing a ground, had a couple of thousand fans and were talking of moving to Milton Keynes. But they’d bought me for £1.5 million! Crazy.”

And while that fee – crazy indeed for a player who had started two league games – burdened him on the pitch, homesickness beset Robinson off it.

Almost inevitably, the lonely young man about town eased the symptoms by spending his big city wages.

“Was I overwhelmed by the fee? Yes. My family is from a working-class background, and here I was being bought for £1.5 million when there were players with more games and goals under their belts.

“I thought it was mad.”

It didn’t help that Robinson was not one to keep his own counsel.

“If someone says something and I disagree with it, I’ll open my mouth. That happened at Wimbledon with the gaffer, Terry Burton. Sometimes you should bite your lip.”

But Robinson adds: “The big thing was that my family were so far away. I’d never been away from home alone.”

Cue the spending. Silly money, that is. “I was earning a great deal and I wasn’t with the people who could have told me to keep hold of it,” he said.

“I was down there. I was free. I could do whatever I wanted with money other lads my age could only dream of.

“The amount I’d spend was ridiculous. I’d buy clothes for no reason whatsoever. I couldn’t go past a shop without going in and splashing out. Really splashing out.

“Then there were the gadgets, the car . . . stuff every lad would buy if he could afford it.

“Of course, I look back and wish I’d bought a house and ended up with something to show for my career.

“But all I could think about, having found out quickly that Wimbledon didn’t fancy me any more, was coming home.

“Nowadays at clubs, young lads have more guidance from people whose job is to tell them ‘do this, don’t do that’. I had nothing like that.”

Again, though, Robinson is not looking for sympathy.

“Things might not have been different for me even if those types of people had been around. I was stupid, at the end of the day.

“I’m just saying young players today get better advice and should listen.”

With no such advice at hand, and his career taking a downturn with a series of loan moves, Robinson continued spending like a man on the up, rather than on his uppers.

“It was difficult getting your head right for somewhere new, then it not working out.

“It was like being the new kid at school all the time. I couldn’t settle anywhere and it all went belly up.

“I’d gone from earning next to nothing, to massive wages, then dropped to what was still decent money. But I was still spending.

“And I was forking out money on coming home on whatever day off I got. But I’m a family lad.”

Then, after leaving Torquay in May 2006, came the comedown which bottomed out on January 8 last year.

“I’m glad it (the bankruptcy) happened when I was at home,” he admits. “If it wasn’t for my family . . . well, God knows.

“They stuck by me through everything, though there’s only so much your family can take.

“But now, slowly but surely, I’m coming out of it. I’ve been working again and the only way is up.

“I’ve known good times and bad, but I’ve learned to appreciate what I have. And I’ve had what most young lads can only dream of.

“I’ve played in front of full houses at St James’s Park, in the Olympic Stadium in Rome, in the Premiership and never looked out of place.

“I haven’t quite hit the heights I should have. But the only person to blame is the idiot looking back at me in the mirror!”

And his thoughts on next month’s derby?

“I’ll watch it somewhere,” he says. “I still get phone calls every time, a few weeks beforehand, asking for tickets.”

And he’ll watch it sat on the fence.

“I love Sunderland because I’m from there, and I love Newcastle for giving me a chance in football. So hopefully it’s a draw!”

Predictable? It’s about time some- thing in Paul Robinson’s life was . . .