Pop goes the weasel – Cunning Newcastle United Fairs Cup winner Bryan Robson | OneFootball

A decade after George Eastham’s landmark departure from Newcastle United, history repeated itself to a certain degree in 1971 and we saw another fine player leave the club.

Unlike George, Bryan Robson (Bryan ‘Pop’ Robson to give him his full title) didn’t want to leave Newcastle but had become disillusioned with the lack of ambition from the senior club management.

He was told to keep quiet and knuckle down by the Chairman (the infamous Lord Westwood), or put in a transfer request.

Not being a shrinking violet and being told what to do, Pop duly obliged, West Ham United paying a club record of £120,000 to secure his services.

The “original” Bryan Robson was born in Sunderland but quickly caught the attention of Newcastle United and signed for us in 1962.

He helped us secure promotion in 1964/65 and had carved out a reputation as a “fox in the box”.

Bryan’s father in law was the ballroom dancer Len Heppell, who along with his wife Molly was a national champion. It was after Len convinced Bryan to hang up his golf clubs one pre-season that added a new dimension to his game.

After dancing training on the balls of his feet, Bryan Robson became more fleet-footed and this helped transform him into a real ‘will-o-wisp’ striker when he returned to the Newcastle fold.

He was banging them in now and in 1968, Newcastle United qualified for the Fairs Cup.

The 1968/69 season saw us win our last trophy and Pop Robson (pictured above to the right of Joe Harvey) scored in six of the 12 Fairs Cup games.

In total, he scored 97 goals for Newcastle before leaving.

He later had three different spells at his hometown club Sunderland, scoring 60 League goals, but never reached the heights he had at Newcastle.

Jimmy Greaves once said that Bryan Pop Robson was the best striker never to have received an England call-up.

In 1986 I had the pleasure of seeing him play in Len White’s testimonial at Hillheads. It was a Newcastle v Sunderland old boys game, Pop playing the first half for the mackems to boos, then the second half for us to cheers.

And he was the best player on the park.