Agog on the Tyne at Robson's resurrection

Many said he was past it but by taking Newcastle to fourth place last year Sir Bobby proved them wrong. And he has not finished yet

There are some statistics, like the number of Soviet war dead or the distance between galaxies where you have to stand back and ponder the numbers. Bobby Robson became a licensed FA coach in 1962. Alex Ferguson had just started out as an amateur for Queens Park, while Terry Venables had graduated from England schoolboy internationals to sign professional terms with Chelsea. Peter Reid and Glenn Hoddle were at primary school. Glenn Roeder wasn't even born.

When people ask why Kenny Dalglish and George Graham, who began their managerial careers 20 years after Robson, are no longer involved in frontline football, the response is often that the game has passed them by. And yet Robson, whose first tactical system would have been the old 4-2-4 formation, which is now as outmoded as a bi-plane, has adapted and survived.

This season will see him turn 70 and there will probably be one more after that, although Gary Speed, like many, wonders what he will do when retiring to the Suffolk countryside. "His enthusiasm for life and football are astonishing," said the Newcastle midfielder. "I don't think he could live without the game but what sets him apart is that he is very easy to speak to; most managers I know have this arrogant aloofness."

Arrogant and aloof would be good descriptions of Ruud Gullit, whose legacy to Robson when he resigned in August 1999 was a divided, disintegrating dressing-room, an empty transfer kitty and a team joint bottom of the Premiership with one point from five games. When he sat down for his first press conference at St James' Park, you imagined Robson was taking a huge risk in ending his managerial career by relegating Newcastle United, which he calls "my beloved club".

His reply is that he always had faith in his managerial ability and it was not difficult to see that Alan Shearer, who had been reduced to a ghost of the past, would be a more effective weapon if he did not continually have his back to goal. Shearer ended the season with 34 goals.

Initially, his relationship with the Newcastle chairman, Freddie Shepherd, was not an easy one. Robson indicated he thought the club had more money than it did and towards the end of his second season at St James' Park, which Rob Lee thought the most disappointing of any he had experienced at Newcastle since he arrived in 1992, he launched a bitter attack on "those who want rid of me". These days the two men have a strong bond.

Shepherd is grateful to Robson for taking Newcastle into the Champions' League well ahead of schedule - Robson thought they might finish eighth last season - while the chairman has released £18m to acquire young talent such as Jermaine Jenas, Hugo Viana and Titus Bramble. Robson has always been at his best coaching volatile young players. Paul Gascoigne, Luis Figo, Romario, Ronaldo and Kieron Dyer have all been through his hands. Even today, when you ask about Romario he will rearrange his desk with pens and tape-recorders becoming defenders and goalposts and recreate one of the Brazilian's strikes for PSV Eindhoven.

He is, however, a far harder man than his public image would suggest. Dyer, for one, has been reduced to tears by Robson's dressing-room invective. Many at the club consider Marcelino to be the best central defender at Newcastle; but the Spaniard's less-than-committed attitude was not tolerated. Robson seemed to lose patience with Marcelino when he withdrew with the slightest of groin strains from Newcastle's Uefa Cup tie with Roma in November 1999, although his team-mates felt he was running scared of facing Francesco Totti in the Olympic Stadium. There was no forgiveness.

When he came to St James' Park, Robson discovered that for the first time since joining Ipswich in 1969, he would be working with limited funds and, initally, his record in the transfer market was not good. Daniel Cordone, Christian Bassedas, Wayne Quinn and Diego Gavilan made little or no impact, while injury meant nobody knew how good a £7m investment in Carl Cort was.

As season 2000-01 was frittered away, it seemed now might be the time for the grand old man to bow out gracefully, especially when a further £6m was spent on Craig Bellamy, who had failed spectacularly to prevent Coventry's relegation.

Instead, Bellamy's pace and the acquisition of a temperamental Frenchman from the Indian Ocean island of Reunion called Laurent Robert, provided the catalyst to Newcastle's finest league season since the departure of Kevin Keegan. Shearer had considered Newcastle were becoming predictable before Robert's arrival with everything funnelled down the right flank to Nolberto Solano, and Dyer returned from long-term injury with spectacular results.

Shay Given, still inadequately protected by his central defence, was perhaps the Premiership's best goalkeeper and Newcastle entertained thrillingly, reaching both cup quarter-finals and fourth place in the Premiership.

It will be a hard act to follow, not least because clubs such as Chelsea and Leeds who have made the Champions' League have done so at the expense of domestic form and Robert may not recover from a back injury until the autumn. Fighting on two fronts is permitted only to those of the size of Arsenal and Manchester United. Whatever happens, this season is unlikely to shake his place in Tyneside's affections. Unlike Kenny Dalglish, who failed to understand the need to entertain and Gullit, who did not consider the fixture with Sunderland "a proper derby", Robson's knowledge of Newcastle runs deep.

When Manchester City arrived for an FA Cup tie in February, he handled the hype of Keegan's return impeccably. Asked whether Keegan had transformed Newcastle into "a big club", Robson waited an age before replying. "It was always a big club. It was a big club in 1951 when I queued for hours and couldn't get a ticket." The press room fell silent but inwardly you wanted to applaud. Here was a man who knew his history because he had lived through it.