First things first, if you cannot put things into perspective on an occasion such as the one at St James’ Park on Saturday evening, then you never will be able to.
The poignancy ahead of the match was palpable, a magnificent flag unfurled bearing the image of Sir Bobby Robson, who would have celebrated his 90th birthday on the day of this fixture. Lady Elsie and her sons Andrew, Paul and Mark were special guests of the club and the Robson family laid flowers at the great man’s statue outside St James’ Park.
Sir Bobby would have loved Christian Atsu had he worked with him, would have loved his enthusiasm, would have loved his smile, would have loved how the Ghanaian cared about others – they both cared about those less fortunate than themselves. And like so many, he would have been devastated by the tragedy that has struck Turkey and Syria and has claimed, amongst its 45,000 victims, the life of Atsu at just 31 years of age.
