100 reasons to be uncheerful

1.       Brexit

2.       Endless talk about Brexit.

3.       The signage in Dunstable is woeful. If you’re going to set up a business, then buy a decent sign.

4.       The fact that I now get worked up about shop signage. I used to listen to The Clash and feel angry about social injustice.

5.       I worry about being a good father. Given I haven’t conceived a child this seems like an unnecessary use of time.

6.        Brett Kavanaugh may or may not be guilty of sexual abuse, what is clear is he simply does not have the intelligence to be on the Supreme Court.

7.       Putting off reading a book when I love it once I’m into it.

8.       Worrying about the day ahead when it normally turns out just fine.

9.       Not finishing off my short stories.

10.   All the great tunes I couldn’t fit into the wedding playlist. (Pulp ‘Common People’ didn’t make the cut.)

 

11.   Still being incompetent at DIY.

12.   Not having the confidence to support my colleagues as much as I should.

13.   Being stuck on the motorway for eight hours in March.

14.   The last few episodes of Bodyguard were just stupid. (Line of Duty, also by Mercurio, is far superior.)

15.   I call myself a comedy fan, but I’ve never watched a Monty Python film.

16.   I sometimes think The Girl supports me more than I support her.

17.   If something at work doesn’t go well on Friday, I’ll stew on it until Monday.

18.   The Girl doesn’t fully empty the residue on cans and tins for recycling.

19.   She also falls asleep early which means I don’t get to spend as much time with her as I would like. (As criticisms go this is a compliment.)

20.   Everyone seems to be shouting at one another these days. (Remember Atticus’ words: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view until you climb in his skin and walk around in it.”)

 

21.    The fact I’ve just said these days.

22.   But seriously, these days people are less kind. More tolerant, but less kind.

23.    Jeremy Corbyn needs to raise his game. Hopefully, Santa bought him the gift of persuasive oratory.

24.    Theresa May’s dancing. (It isn’t bad per se to take the piss out of yourself, but in comedy you have to own your embarrassment. Take out a mortgage on the thing and commit to paying off the debt. She just looked in at the estate agents and thought that would be enough. For all the diabolical things her government have done, we must remember comedically she’s a coward.)

25.   David Cameron is nowhere to be seen. He started the fire and has got off scot-free. Putting the arse into arsonist. (I know that doesn't quite work.)

26.    Ramos taking Salah out.

27.    England running out of steam.

28.    I don’t listen to music as much as I should.

29.    Morrissey continues to let me down.

30.    The season of Baileys before bed is drawing to a close.

 

31.    That Little Drummer Girl was tremendously dull, despite what the critics said.

32.    My copy of Citizen Kane remains in its cellophane wrap.

33.    I’ve had more flat tyres this year than you’ve had hot dinners. (This is directed at models who live in LA, who I’m assuming because of the constant sunshine and worries over what they eat mainly have cold salads.)

34.    The second season of Handmaid’s Tale was harder for the viewer than Offred.

35.    The sports bar near me closed. The Wetherspoons next door killed it. Yet the killer remains at large, paying off witnesses through cheap breakfasts and nationalist beer mats.

36.    I sometimes feel that even with my closest friends I have little to say. It’s strange because I’m a motormouth when I write.

37.    My brother hasn’t yet got that dream job. He really does deserve it.

38.    Seeing my mum in pain. (She’s grand now.)

39.    Being aware that I’ll never be as good a parent as my mum and dad.

40.    Still having a ‘I can’t do’ attitude.

 

41.    Parents lacking self-awareness. It is the hardest job, but some don’t appreciate how therefore it requires work and commitment.

42.    Reduced salt tomato ketchup. An abomination!

43.    Young people having to shoulder heavy grief.

44.    Discovering Shaun Keaveny’s breakfast show just as it was ending.

45.    I should have bought a Flight Of The Conchords ticket.

46.    Being stuck in Sainsbury’s car park over Christmas.

47.    Still struggling to appreciate that given time most things sort themselves out.

48.    Piers Morgan graffitiing the airwaves.

49.    The media’s round-the-clock coverage just gives more attention to attention-seekers who could do without it.

50.    Forgetting that amongst the hilarious explanation given by Russia, someone died as a result of their nerve agent.

 

51.    Buying a brand-new laptop and it not working. Getting a replacement and that not working either.

52.    I can empathise with Donald Trump. Three times in succession I tried and failed to close an umbrella. On one of the occasions The Girl was splashed by a tsunami of water. She was in her best frock for a wedding. Her dad had to come along and close it for me. I felt less like a man and more like  a Trump. This was a bad day.

53.    Football fans seem to be getting stupid again.

54.    I missed seeing It’s A Wonderful Life this Christmas.

55.    I still think I could write for a living - I have done nothing towards making this happen.

56.    There are friends I haven’t seen in a while.

57.    Aretha Franklin dying.

58.    The rise of Jacob Rees-Mogg.

59.    We laugh at the Americans, but Boris could be our next PM. (The fact I’ve called him by the matey nomenclature ‘Boris’ is why he could be PM. Johnson is more apt: American slang for ‘dick.’)

60.    People not saying, ‘thank you.’

 

61.    The way women are treated as sex objects, despite the fact their job has nothing to do with sex. Asking a woman receiving her World Footballer of the Year to twerk would only be ok if they were applying to be a Miley Cyrus impersonator.

62.   Serena Williams’ meltdown. It wasn’t right and it was wrong how some people defended it.

63.    The level of abuse aimed at Raheem Sterling.

64.    Judging someone based on who they vote for. Most people are in the middle and who they vote for is based on tenuous circumstances. Few voters are thinking, ‘I hate (insert group). Fuck ‘em!’

65.    The Windrush scandal exposed the blind-thinking on immigration. Rightly, everyone thought black immigrants were badly let down. Yet they don’t think new immigrants in detention camps and poor housing are.

66.    I’ve had a week of buffet food. Times relentless march means this period will soon be over.

67.    Who knows where my copy of Elf went?

68.    I'm only completely myself when I’m with The Girl.

69.    I sometimes enter light-hearted conversations with serious questions. I would be terrible on a panel show. A real buzz killer. I’d be good on an interview though, Desert Island Discs more than Graham, where I’d have to jostle less for position, where you couldn’t be interrupted, that’s where my anecdotes would really shine.

70.    I still regret not thanking my English teacher for all that she did for me.

 

71.    I wish the parent-teacher relationship was more collaborative and less oppositional – it would be better for the child.

72.    Call The Midwife.

73.    I don’t always read the books that have been kindly lent to me because I get diverted by things I hear about or read.

74.    I spend just as much time sorting out my podcast for running as I do running.

75.    Everyone going nuts about the Royals again. (Harry and William are decent lads and probably understand more about the world than some public school toffs, but they and their family are not worthy of idolatry,)

76.    Disasters in non-English speaking worlds being quickly forgotten.

77.    Despite experimenting with my lunches this year, I still haven’t discovered the right combination. If only I could afford M&S sandwiches on a daily basis. That for me is how much enough money is: when you can routinely buy delicious shop-bought sandwiches without spiraling into debt.

78.    My library is closing for a few months.

79.    I moan about local businesses closing down, but I’m yet to go to my local theatre or restaurant.

80.    Colin Murray’s Blood on the Tracks should be on a time when others can listen to it.

 

81.     VAR.

82.    Nigel Farage leaving UKIP because it had become too racist. He set up the Private Members Club with a union jack façade, with bouncers dressed in union jack suits, with the English boy band Union J exclusively on the speakers, and is then surprised when Tommy Robinson wants in.

83.    Getting disappointed when I don’t get re-tweeted. Jeez, I’m a grown man.

84.    Thinking before I speak. (This isn’t always a good thing. Sometimes you’ve just got to vent and get things off your chest.)

85.    I feel that I don’t have much time when I waste a good half an hour a day looking at stuff I don’t need to on the internet.

86.    I could be watching something brilliant and artistic on Netflix, but often I go for an easy 90 minute romcom because I don’t have the patience for anything beyond two hours.

87.    I position myself as a class warrior when in reality I’ve never known hardship or struggle.

88.    Watching England get hammered in the hockey.

89.    Being rude about the town I live in. I mean I’m not like Lewis Hamilton, but I could be kinder about the place. Yes, the town centre could do with Betjeman bombs, but there’s a lot of good things too.

90.    I shouldn’t be rude about Luton fans. They deserve pity, not opprobrium.

 

91.    I could do with eating less sweets. Should I go to the dentist again then I face Shane MacGowan levels of treatment.

92.    Teaching has turned me into a control freak. Initially, I found it hard to let my brother organise my stag do.

93.    I think I’m getting to a point where I avoid conversation more than I seek it.

94.    I enjoy hearing people talk about things more than participating in them. I spend more time reading and hearing reviews than watching and experiencing the actual thing.

95.   Bountys in a box of Celebrations.

96.   Strawberry Creams in Quality Streets.

97.   Cadbury’s Caramel in Cadbury’s Heroes.

98.   Why do children buy you a box of Celebrations at Christmas when Cadbury’s Heroes are clearly the better assortment? I can only assume price comes into play.

99.    I forget how lucky I am to do a job that when asked, ‘What do you do?’  I’m proud to answer.

100.                       I’ve thought for two hours about the things that make me uncheerful.

Brooklyn 99

Galton and Simpson. Linehan and Matthews.  Iannucci and Morris. Larry David. Victoria Wood. Most comedy fans will be familiar with these names. These men and women didn’t just produce one excellent show but a series of them. To have one success in television could be considered fortunate, to have multiple suggests carefulness. Out of the names I’ve listed above Graham Linehan is perhaps the most mercurial: his hit-rate is astonishing. Big Train, Father Ted, Black Books, IT Crowd, Count Arthur Strong and Motherland all owe something to him. Five of those are sitcoms, one of the most difficult mediums to write in. Just because you’ve mastered it once, doesn’t mean you can again – take the diminishing returns of Ricky Gervais. Getting the sitcom right is harder than sketch: in sketch if characters don’t fly you can ground them; also, also the ideas are three-minute singles, not coherent albums – don’t like one sketch, then skip to another. In sitcom the characters you start with invariably are the ones you end with. The audience has to like those characters early, enjoy the situations they’re in, otherwise they may not return for another season.

In my mind, the greatest comic writer right now is Michael Schur. Haven’t heard the name? Well, neither had I until last year. Watching NBC’s The Good Place I noticed his name standing alone in the credits. In his previous sitcoms The Office (the US version of the British one) and Parks and Recreation, he worked with others contributors, making his name fade into obscurity along theirs. It doesn’t surprise me that The Good Place was a single enterprise, authored by one, since it’s so groundbreaking that two people could never have shared the idea. The comedy set in the afterlife is inspired by Jean-Paul Satre’s existentialist play, No Exit; no two people would think, ‘Now here’s an idea for a sitcom.’ Now in its third season, The Good Place raises philosophical questions all whilst providing regular laughs.

I'm quite interested in reading the plays at the bottom, particularly 'The Respectful Prostitute.'

 

We often hear how filmmakers are auteurs (see Lynne Ramsay and Quentin Tarantino), people possessing a singular vision that puts them on a pedestal well above box-office mortals; they are artists, artisans; painting, crafting the scene with a style like no other. The term is never applied to comedy. In the arts pathos is valued more than laughter. The truth is great comedy writing involves more textures than tragedy. For comedy to work we must care about the characters it’s being done too, therefore, there must be pathos too. Comedy involves tragedy as well as laughter. Tragedy, on the other hand, can just have the pathos without the gags. For me, Michael Schur’s work on The Good Place is every bit an auteur’s work – will he be called it? No. Will he mind? Definitely not. He has a comic sensibility – worthiness is poison to comics.

Schur’s other three sitcoms aren’t as dazzling as The Good Place, but they are as funny. His first The Office didn’t get off to a great start. Showrunner Greg Daniels made a sensible, but incorrect, decision to remain loyal to the source material. The American audience found the Brent character unlikeable, the authenticity too much. Daniels, Schur and the other writers listened. In the second season the show went its own way, making the principal character more likeable and breaking out of the cubicles to explore settings outside the workplace. From there, the show became a huge success; perhaps teaching Schur a valuable lesson on how sitcoms can be improved.

The first sitcom Schur worked on.

 

Schur used this experience in co-creating his own workplace sitcom, Parks and Recreation; this time set in local government as opposed to a paper merchant. In many respects the characters are similar in that you have an over-enthusiastic boss paired with employees that would rather be anywhere else. Also, the same problem befell Schur on Parks as it did on The Office: the protagonist was not as likeable as they needed to be. Leslie Knope, the Deputy Director of the Parks and Recreation department, was simply too annoying in season one. If it wasn’t for Ron Swanson, sitcom's great character, the programme may never have been recommissioned. As it was, the writers learned from their mistakes and recalibrated Knope’s character, making her more humane, turning her into a political heroine we could all believe in - Hilary without private e-mail.

From there I jumped a Schur sitcom and landed on The Good Place. The one I swerved was Brooklyn 99. I had seen the pilot on E4 a few years ago and wasn’t sold on it, mainly due to the fact it was on E4, a channel the comedian Stewart Lee described in a routine as, “Channel 4 is like a flood of sewage that comes unbidden into your home whereas E4 is like you constructed a sluice to let it in.” Typically the output of E4 is shitshow of reality TV interspersed with episode 782 of Big Bang Theory; however that wasn’t the only reason I didn’t return to watch. I didn’t really like Detective Jake Peralta, the protagonist of the show; he seemed too handsome and snarky to be the lead in a sitcom. As a British viewer I’m used to rooting for the loser; the kind of person that thinks they’re popular despite daily reminders to the contrary; the type who think they’re the fashion bible when their clothes disprove intelligent design; a character who believes they’re a success when their bank manager does not. Played by Andy Samberg, Detective Jake Peralta, seemed too handsome, good at his job and well-adjusted to lead a sitcom.

Andy Samberg: too handsome to lead a sitcom?

 

A few years later and The Girl and me have completed all manageable Netflix shows. (We can’t devote hours to Mad Men and House of Cards ­– we’ll commit to marriage, but not a long-running box-set.) I said to The Girl, “Should we watch Brooklyn 99? I just read yesterday it’s by the same guy who did The Good Place?” She said she would. Knowing it was by Michael Schur meant I was prepared to give it more of a go. I still felt the same way about the Samberg character, but appreciated the others. I particularly liked Rosa Diaz, an attractive scowl, written from the same playbook as Parks’ April Ludgate and Charles, a more intelligent puppydog than Andy Dwyer, another character from Parks. Like April and Andy, an unrequited love affair is established early, giving the sitcom a throughline to pin its romance on.

We liked it enough to continue and I’m glad we did. Over the course of the first season we see Jake Peralta become more and more likeable. He may be the best (or second best) detective in the precinct but in true genre cliché his private life is a mess. He’s racked up debts that overtime won’t clear and has a level of emotional baggage no airline would let on board. Being a sitcom this is humorously played out, so the damaged detective trope never becomes a burden for the viewer. The other characters around Peralta are fantastic too. Captain Holt initially seems to be all the deadpan of Ron Swanson without the accompanying humour, over time though he morphs beyond one-note ‘aren’t my colleague zany?’ into a figure that can provide the jokes as well as the reaction to them.

All of the great characters of Brooklyn 99.

 

In Brooklyn 99 Schur retained the best bits of his office based sitcoms: the hierarchical, interpersonal and romantic conflicts, whilst doing something new in moving away from the mockumentary format and addressing social issues. The precinct is headed by Captain Holt, who we learn in the pilot episode is gay. Given the events leading up to this moment have involved an investigation into a stolen ham, the fact this revelation is so powerfully understated is a tribute to the writing. Unlike some sitcoms, Brooklyn is progressive in that it doesn’t reduce its female character to ‘what are these guys like?’ reacting. The females are all funny in their own way, whether it be Santiago having Monica Gellar levels of competitiveness or Gina having the quirks of Phoebe Buffy, they’re all brilliant.

And what about the jokes? Well in the great American tradition they come thick or fast. Or intelligent and fast as in this case. Creating characters with distinguishable traits means that you can have a full variety of jokes. Take Rosa who has fallen out with Charles over not being invited to his wedding:

Terry: Talk to him, that's what friends do.
Rosa: Nope. I'm gonna wait 'til I'm on my deathbed, get in the last word and then die immediately.
Terry: That's your plan for dealing with this?
Rosa: That's my plan for dealing with everything. I have seventy-seven arguments I'm going to win that way.

Here Rosa’s black soul personality gives rise to dark jokes. I love the specificity of seventy-seven there too. This is from the Victoria Wood school of nomenclature. In comedy it’s best to give a set number or name to elevate a joke – Schur knows this better than anyone.

 

And on the flip side of this, there’s running gags about daft things. In The Office the callback line was ‘that’s what she said.’ The sitcom made this funny; it was the rest of the world that made it annoying. Here, Schur has invented a new one: ‘Is that the name of your sex tape?’ Below we see Santiago and Peralta turn a workplace argument into their office ‘in joke’:

Amy: I'm horrible at this.
When can we stop?
Jake: I'm horrible at this -
Amy: I know, I know. Title of my sex tape.
Jake: Huh. Well done.
Title of my sex tape.

It is daft and stupid but so are most jokes in the office. What someone says one day can be used against them for the rest of their career. The only way to beat the joke is to hand in your notice and find refuge in the employ of someone else.

Michael Schur has had a role in four of the best sitcoms of the last ten years. With Brooklyn 99 being revived by NBC and The Good Place recommissioned for an extra life, Schur’s output shows no signs of abating. The question now left is does he have the creative energy to conceive new comedies? With his high gag count (is that the title of his …), there’s every chance he can do it again and again. (Is that the title of his …)

Brooklyn 99 and The Good Place are both available on Netflix.

Normal People

Last week I went into the library to return Anne Tyler’s Dinner at The Homesick Restaurant (I loved her A Spool of Blue Thread, but didn’t get on with this one), when I saw a book that I’ve had my eye on for a while: Normal People by Sally Rooney. Now, I’m guilty of reading a lot about books without actually reading them. I regularly check those Guardian features where authors recommend holiday reads. (I have no idea how long these vacations last, as typically they choose the kind of obese tomes that Ryanair would charge an extra seat for.) Usually, I just scroll down to authors I like, who aren’t pretentious, and read what they have to say. Normal People is the book that most people seem to be talking about. I’d read Rooney’s previous Conversations With Friends, which topped many end of year lists; a work I enjoyed without completely falling for. But this one seemed more mature with Rooney herself even acknowledging her first was in some ways a ‘trial novel’ that gave her room to experiment and grow.

Her first novel.

I had only a week to finish Normal People (it’s a ‘Hot Pick,’ which means it self-destructs into a library fine unless you dispose of it fast), and it’s a testament to the writing that I did. The book revolves around two characters, Marianne, a loner in school, who lives in a big house in the country; and Connell, a popular kid in the same school, whose mother works as a cleaner in Marianne’s house. At school the two never cross paths: Marianne evades company- her claim? she is above it, too bright for it - the reality you feel is different; meanwhile, Connell doesn’t so much embrace crowds, but accepts them, recognising the status and security they give him. When he goes to pick up his mum from work, the hierarchical lines break down between Marianne and him. He’s disarmed by her intellect and flirtation. So far I appreciate this sounds like a John Hughes movie: boy from the wrong side of the tracks meets girl who owns the station – or something like that. But it never succumbs to cliché. This is because Rooney never concedes to caricature. Connell isn’t the working class hero: he keeps Marianne at arms-length in school, afraid that she’ll infect his reputation; Marianne isn’t a middle-class snob: she values Connell’s intellect, regarding him her superior. There’s a naturalness to the dialogue too that give the work its verisimilitude. Sure, some moments give rise to humour, but nothing is telegraphed, scenes aren't contrived into set-pieces.

As well as the dialogue and characterisation, Rooney has a way with structure. The novel is shaped into a series of vignettes, where we drop in and out of the characters lives. One chapter might move us on five months, another five minutes. What’s clever is how Rooney handles this. Amidst the scene being described, she invokes flashback to fill in the blanks. A precursor to this approach is David Nicholls’ One Day; like that work, the form enhances the story without becoming it. We’re locked in rooms with these characters and then thrown out at the end of each chapter; consequently, we’re desperate to find out what happened while we were away: how are you? where have you been? we were worried about you.

A similar structure.

Because both characters are bright, they’re accepted into Dublin University. They have left the country and joined the city. Untethered from everything he knows, Connell struggles to adapt. Free from past traumas, Marianne prospers. The roles have reversed, and now Connell needs a friend. Later in the novel, Connell explains his position, 

I just feel like I left Carricklea thinking I could have a different life, he says. But I hate it here, and now I can never go back there again. 

(Why haven’t I used speech marks here? Rooney doesn’t use them. There's no punctuation to distinguish between dialogue and narration, meaning you have to pay attention.) Connell’s words remind me of how I initially felt at uni. I thought doing my English degree would allow me to meet people like me. In time I realised that a course isn’t a personality. Just because someone reads doesn’t make them nice. So often students are sold ‘The University Dream’ of “Meeting Your People.” The reality can be quite different. Some universities are middle class to the extreme. In a dress code of pashminas and chinos, poorer students can feel excluded, barred entry.  

How great are her front covers?

Despite orbiting around one another at college, there exists a pull between the two. Just as they seem to fall into alignment, something happens that sends them on different paths. This never feels like romcom territory. The reason the two struggle to be together is messy, rooted in class ignorance and psychosexual kinks. For all of this, there are moments of real beauty when the two are joined, with Rooney demonstrating an uncanny knack for choosing exactly the right description.

He holds her tightly. His body adjusting itself to hers like the kind of mattress that’s supposedly good for you.

How often would you hear a simile like that? The figurative of the domestic. It’s the kind of line John Cooper Clarke would write.

Connell and Marianne mightn’t endure as characters like Dexter and Emma in One Day – they’re not larger than life; rather life itself. I thoroughly enjoyed Normal People. A literary work that normal people can enjoy. An intelligent book that can be read in a day - how novel.

Normal People is available now.

Bobby Robson: More Than A Manager

Italia ’90 will always go down as my favourite World Cup. The irony is I never watched it live. I was just five years old at the time, too young to cry foul on mum’s TV choices. However, when my brother and me began to show an interest in football, our dad went out and bought us the highlights. The competition had it all. Platt’s turn and volley, Robson’s jig, Lineker from twelve, Gazza’s tears, Waddle’s blaze. I think part of the appeal was we watched this during Graham Taylor's era (England’s worst period, which saw us crash out of Euro ’92 and fail to qualify for USA ’94.) As a huge Watford and Taylor fan, there were mitigating circumstances- namely Carlton Palmer. Palmer in your national team indicates a talent pool more paddling than Olympic.

For me and my brother Italia ’90 was truly special. Instead of ‘Do I not like that,’ it was ‘I do like this.’ In many ways the tournament was redolent of this year’s. In both we didn’t beat quality opposition, progressing through the tournament with an obdurate defence and a clinical number nine. Despite having quality players, the team was the thing; both led by men who'd survived national failure. (Southgate missed a penalty in Euro ’96 and Robson failed to win a game in Euro ‘88.) Both men, both teams, achieved success through shaking hands with pressure, thereby avoiding its throttle.

I’ve been thinking again about 90’s football because I’ve been going through the Quickly Kevin, will he score? back catalogue. The podcast presented by Josh Widdicombe and friends Michael Marden and Chris Scull interview ex-players, managers and fans about their memories of 90’s football. Recently, Stuart Pearce was on to chronicle his experiences of the decade. Listening to the episode, it was evident that he held England manager Bobby Robson in high esteem, speaking fondly of the camaraderie within the camp, attributing it to the gaffer’s enthusiasm for the game. I’ve always held Sir Bobby Robson in regard; he had a twinkle in the eye that belied his age. He struck me as a manager that knew how to combine the tactics board with jumpers-for-goalpost zeal. As a teenager, I remember feeling devastated when Newcastle sacked him. He was England's dancing smile: how could he be treated this way?

Today I watched Gabriel Clarke and Torquil Jones’ film Bobby Robson: More Than A Manager. The feature documents his life from humble beginnings to football’s high table. Born into a Durham mining community, Robson's father was a miner. Each week he and his dad would go to watch Newcastle come rain or shine. They would be at those gates at 12pm – three hours before kick-off- to elongate the ninety-minutes into an escapist's day. Bobby was a gifted footballer with teams in the north-east making eyes. However, only Fulham asked him out, causing him to up sticks and move south. He was a good player, capped twenty times for England, but unfortunate injuries meant he never achieved greatness.

This was to come in management. 

Ipswich Town gave him the opportunity to make a difference. At the time they were languishing at the heel of football; by the time he left they were heading it, winning the prestigious UEFA Cup. Soon England came calling. The ’86 World Cup was infamous for the Hand of God, the 90’s for the Foot of Wadd. He was desperately unlucky in both cases. What the documentary reveals though is how resolute Robson was. Sloth-cum-manager Iain Dowie would define it as ‘bouncebackability;’ a pretentious twat like me, Kiplingesque: (‘If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same … Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it.’) Whether he succeeded or failed, he woke up the next day ready to face a new challenge.

The documentary shows these challenges in non-chronological form, keeping lots of plates spinning, returning to them at regular intervals. This start-stop structure makes for an engrossing watch as it means you don’t know what’s coming next. Adopting a linear approach to storytelling, particularly in biography, can feel tired, especially for fans familiar with the subject. The ebb and flow of Robson’s timeline is altogether more interesting and suits a man who revolutionised the game.

Typically, a lot of documentaries I watch on football have been screened on ITV4, featuring top draw contributors. With More Than A Manager though, the talking heads on show are another level, a who's who of football. There’s ex-players Lineker, Gascoigne and Guardiola; a former colleague in the face of Jose Mourinho; and importantly his wife and son. Most affecting for me was Gazza’s testimony. I hope I’m not being unfair in saying that Paul Gascoigne seemed to get from Robson what his own son missed: a father. With Bobby away so much, his son concedes that he never got to talk football with his dad, something he would have loved to do. In contrast, Gazza seems little boy lost without Robson. He describes how he felt ‘safe’ under Bobby; with Lineker confirming they had a special connection. Towards the end of the film, Gazza wells up. The tears aren’t Italia 90, ones of personal disappointment, rather those of a pained orphan.

I guess that’s why the film is called ‘More than a Manager.’ A manager is in the results business: win at all costs. For Robson the scoreline wasn’t enough. Just as important were the men that got the scoreline. Were they humble in victory? Motivated in defeat? Were they a privilege to work for? Or impoverished in worth? He didn’t just create players. He created men. Loyal in life; loyal in death. In one telling moment, Robson says ‘If you are a fantastic painter, you are never rich until you are dead. And I think it’s the same with managers. You’re never appreciated until you’re gone.’ Bobby Robson: More than a Manager is that appreciation. Gone, but not forgotten, the film is the deserved eulogy to a great man.

Bobby Robson: More than a Manager is on Netflix.