SPANISH football fans have flooded the internet with messages after award-winning TV reporter Michael Robinson's death from cancer was announced earlier today.
The one-time star player – Robinson was European champion with Liverpool before joining Queen's Park Rangers, and then moving to Osasuna in 1987 – had an instantly-recognisable voice on the small screen and on the radio as Spain's only long-running sports commentator speaking in a second language.
After giving the commentary on a handful of UK Premier League matches on Spain's second channel, La 2, Robinson's big moment came in 1990 with the World Cup in Italy.
He was then 31, and had been living in Spain for three years.
His reporting on the World Cup, via TVE – the Spanish answer to the BBC – was the start of his becoming a household name in his adopted country.
Robinson joined Canal + when it first formed, and presented El Día Después ('The Day After') from its very first episode.
The Millennium saw him joining Cadena SER radio with his own programme, 'The Robinson Report' (El Informe Robinson), which gave him the chance to report on Spain's first-ever World Cup win in 2010 and the country's UEFA Euro 'sandwich', netting the title either side of its FIFA win in South Africa, in 2008 and 2012.
Those listening to the radio at the time of Spain's World Cup win found out, thanks to Michael, exactly what was going through Andrés Iniesta's head as he scored what has now been dubbed 'the goal of his life', the one which clinched the trophy for his country.
By the time Robinson announced on air, via his Cadena SER friend and colleague Carles Francino, that he had incurable cancer, he was presenting a programme on the station called Acento Robinson ('Robinson Accent'), in which he narrated very little-know stories and fun facts from the world of sport.
Robinson had a malignant melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer which, if found in time, can be cured with a straightforward operation under local anaesthetic, but which, in his case, had spread before it was discovered.
Carles Francino told listeners on Cadena SER on December 18, 2018 that Michael had been diagnosed, and that it was stage IV, meaning it was incurable.
Stage IV does not necessarily mean 'terminal', but has no cure and can only, at best, be kept under control through treatment.
Once all treatments possible have been tried and failed to produce results, stage IV cancer is then considered to be terminal.
Michael was undergoing immunotherapy some 16 months ago when his illness was first discovered.
But he was optimistic about his long-term future – in fact, by the beginning of this year, he had started the process of obtaining Spanish citizenship.
According to the Leicester-born ex-player: “I refuse to be a foreigner in a country that has opened its arms and its homes to me.”
Unable to vote in the referendum on Brexit on June 23, 2016, due to having been outside the UK for more than 15 years – in his case, 29 years, by then – Robinson was not backward in coming forward on what he thought of the process and those leading it, and it was his native country's planned departure from the European Union that led him to apply for Spanish nationality.
It is not clear whether he had acquired it by the time of his death, which was announced on Twitter this morning (Tuesday, April 28) at 09.25 mainland Spain time.
But his fame and his career achievements were more than enough, for the people of Spain, for it not to matter what was on the cover of his passport: Michael won the Vázquez Montalbán International Journalism Award, and also two Premios Onda ('Airwaves Awards') during his time on TV and radio.
Six days earlier, sports reporter Pipi Estrada erroneously tweeted an RIP message about Michael Robinson, but Robinson himself responded to it, saying, in Spanish: “For all those who are asking, I can tell you that I'm still fighting. Thanks to everyone for your interest and your shows of love. I see that I'll never walk alone, I can hear you like I did in Anfield. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and keep your spirits up in lockdown.”
It was soon after this that he was taken to hospital after a turn for the worse.
Sports stars who have paid tribute to Michael on social media have, in many cases, used the title from the Liverpool FC anthem, You'll Never Walk Alone, in English or in Spanish – Nunca Caminarás Sólo – and include his old Canal + colleague Carlos Martínez who put, “You'll never walk alone, you'll always be with me.”
Others include Sergio Ramos, Miguel Ángel Román, Felipe del Campo – who said Robinson 'formed part of the soundtrack of the 1990s' – Osasuna football club, Julio Maldonado who worked with him for 30 years, FC Barcelona, NBA basketball star Pau Gasol, former Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera who spoke fondly of his memories of Michael's 'Leicester accent', radio DJ José Antonio Ponseti, Liverpool FC, the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) and its chairman Alejandro Blanco, Canal + and Cadena SER colleague Manu Carreño, Manolo Lama from Radio COPE, Mónica Marchante, Joaquín Caparrós, and tennis star Rafa Nadal, who tweeted a picture of himself and Michael standing in front of the former's trophy cabinet (second photo).
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