SUMMIT SPECIAL

Bryan Robson can still move mountains - FFT teamed up with the Manchester United marvel to scale Africa's highest peak

- Andy Mitten

From the age of eight until turning 20, I spent an illogical amount of time worrying about the fitness of Bryan Robson.

That’s from the moment Captain Marvel joined Manchester United for a Britishrecord transfer fee in October 1981 to his 1994 departure to become playermanager of Middlesbrough.

Captain for both club and country, the Geordie midfielder was the finest footballer in the land, even if he insists it was Paul Gascoigne. Injuries hampered Robson’s progress. Manchester United won the first 10 games in the 1985-86 season and were favourites to collect a first title since 1967, then Robson got injured and the team finished fourth.

Now 67, Robson is mightily proud of his 700-plus professional appearances for West Bromwich Albion, United and Boro, plus 90 for England. I know that because it’s one of the conversations we have at 4,000 metres while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

All these years later and I’m still worrying about Robson’s injuries as we try to climb Africa’s highest peak. At his age, it’s incredible that he’s scaling such heights at all – and for a second time – but he’s doing it to help children in some of the poorest areas of Manchester and beyond. As player or pensioner, he’s always put his body on the line for others to reap the benefits. One morning high above the clouds, Robson says his badly swollen ankle won’t fit in his boot.

“My ankle popped as we climbed down from 4,500 metres,” he explains. “It first went after Dennis Tueart chopped me when I was a youngster at West Brom, and it’s been injured a few times since.”

Robson has been a friend and foe of cortisone shots ever since – “I used to have an injection before the biggest games, until the physio told me I’d had too many” – but as the former midfielder displayed many times in his pomp, he doesn’t understand the concept of giving up.