Andy Robinson ⭑ From A-Z since '92
Leeds United feel like a bit of an accident in Andy Robinson's trajectory. He should have played his best years for Everton, then transferred to Tranmere as a Merseyside legend for his boyhood club.
This is part of my (eight year long, it'll fly by) attempt to write about every Leeds United player since 1992. For more about why I'm doing this, go back to Aapo Halme, and to read all the players so far, browse the archive here.
If the comic book plots of Roy of the Rovers always felt a little too unrealistic for you, consider the realistic version. Instead of tall blonde hero Roy Race performing wondrous feats at World Cups, take Andy Robinson. A short bald scouser coming from a shipyard's Sunday team to make himself a hero then a villain at Swansea, and a villain then a hero not at Melchester Rovers, but Tranmere. Robinson, like Race, could play some of the most exciting and creative football you could hope for. He also got sent off twice in one season for headbutts.
Leeds United feel like a bit of an accident in Andy Robinson's trajectory, but our club ends up being quite an important part of the story that made him a hero in his hometown. If life were simpler Robinson should have played his best years for Everton in the Premier League — he was good enough, although when he was on their books as a teen the Toffees decided otherwise. Then, as he wound down, he could have transferred to Tranmere and played out his final years as a Merseyside legend for his boyhood club, 300 yards from the house he grew up in.
They both let him go, Everton as a teenager, Tranmere after plucking him from Sunday League side Cammell Laird and giving him an odd, season-long trial and one game in the LDV Vans Trophy. He was 24, and his form in Rovers' reserves had put back on the local radar. Wrexham gave him a trial, then former Leeds captain Brian Flynn took him to Swansea. Now the comic book stories could start: with revenge. In his first season the FA Cup fifth round took Swansea to Prenton Park. "It would be nice to go back there and score the winner," Robinson said. "That would kick them in the teeth a bit!" It wasn't the winner, but he did score in a 2-1 defeat. And at Prenton Park that season in a 2-2 draw. And in a 2-0 win at Prenton Park the following season. And he crossed to assist the only goal at Prenton Park the season after that. It's fair to say he made his point on the Wirral.
It would be wrong to say Robinson was only motivated by proving people wrong, but he was determined to make as much of his stalled career as he could. Part of what made him popular at Swansea was his down to earth manner, the feeling that if he could leap from Sunday to Football League, so could anyone on the terraces. Not to bludgeon the theme, but it's Roy of the Rovers stuff, and it seemed to disorient Robinson. Fuming outside a Swansea nightclub when his wife's bag was searched, he asked police officers, "What can you arrest me for? I'm a footballer." He then found out that being Swansea's player of the year in his debut season was not an invisibility cloak. He scored eight in League Two that year, and eight the next, but added two red cards, both for headbutts — the first just moments after teammate Garry Monk had been sent off — and a lot of arguments. When the second red card was raised, ruling him out of the play-offs, he took a swinging kick that narrowly missed the ref then went after every Bristol Rovers player he could get to while his teammates struggled to hold him back.
He seemed to be struggling with letting go of Sunday League, but there were other struggles, too. His third season was his best. He scored twelve league goals, plus five in the run to winning the LDV Vans Trophy, and another giving Swansea the lead in a play-off final they lost on penalties to Barnsley. His eighteenth goal of the season had been the winner in a game Robinson almost missed after a difficult visit home where his father was ill with cancer, the disease that had taken Robinson's mum a couple of years earlier. After his father's funeral, at the start of the next campaign, Robinson came off the bench to score the winner against Bristol City. It feels trivial to call this Roy of the Rovers stuff, but stories like these get written in comic books because football actually is like this sometimes. "I wanted to be home to spend more time with my dad than I did, but my commitments in Swansea meant I couldn't," Robinson said. "But I knew that what I was doing down here was keeping him alive a little bit longer. My football was all for him. It was keeping him alive and keeping his spirits up. He was happy as long as I was playing football and I was happy to do that."
Robinson's time with Swansea began with him at the heart of Brian Flynn's attempt to get up the leagues by playing storybook football. "Four-threes have got to be better than one-nils," Flynn said, putting Robinson into his attack-minded team with exuberantly skilful striker Lee Trundle, dangerous midfielder Leon Britton and precise playmaker Roberto Martinez. Robinson could play in the centre or out wide but loved life around the edge of the box. Whether with a dead ball or a drop of his shoulder to gain some space, Robinson would find a way of putting his shot in the top corner. But Flynn couldn't get the team into the play-offs and was controversially replaced, in spring, by Kenny Jackett.
Robinson's form introduced the third aspect of a late-starting footballer's story: the need to make as much money as possible from his short time in the game. A big offer came from Swansea's biggest rivals in summer 2006, as owner Sam Hamman and executive director Peter Ridsdale wanted to take Robinson for Cardiff's tilt at promotion to the Premier League. Robinson was constantly in the south Wales headlines while his father's health was declining. "I'm so confused and my head is all over the place at the moment," he said. "It's not about money, it's about ambition. If I go into the Championship and score loads of goals and play well my financial situation could change dramatically because maybe I'd catch the eye of a Premiership club. The chance to play Championship football may not come around for me again." In the end he stayed, signing a two-year contract, and was publicly dismayed in February when it was Kenny Jackett who left, abruptly, with the team on the edge of the play-offs. Roberto Martinez, the next season, managed Swansea to the League One title while Robinson scored eight and that, and the end of his contract, put his future back on the agenda. As did Leeds United's progress to the League One play-off final, to play Doncaster.