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Sir Bobby Robson was already gravely ill when he came to St James’ Park in July 2009, and he needed a wheelchair to get about. Missing it was never really on the cards, though. He couldn’t stand being late, and letting people down was even worse.
A charity match had been put on in his honour that Sunday afternoon: England against Germany, a rerun of the 1990 World Cup semi-final. Alan Shearer started even though he hadn’t played at Italy 90. Shearer always said Bobby Robson saved his career, so it was fitting they were on the same pitch one final time.
Before kick-off, Bobby was pushed slowly round the ground. He lifted his cap to the crowd and stopped to shake hands with the players, while thousands in the stands sang.
“Walking in a Robson Wonderland.”
Then Nessun Dorma came over the speakers, the tune that soundtracked Italia 90, and for a few minutes everyone was back there. Gazza’s tears. Chris Waddle’s penalty. The summer Bobby Robson got England within a single kick of a World Cup final.
Nineteen years on, England finally got the better of Germany. Bobby went home that night just as everyone wanted: overjoyed and utterly worn out.
No one at St James’ Park realised it, but they’d just seen Sir Bobby Robson’s last football match. Five days later, the news came.
“It is with great sadness that it has been announced today that Sir Bobby Robson has lost his long and courageous battle with cancer.”
The next weekend, thousands lined up outside St James’ Park with flowers, scarves and shirts. Newcastle. Ipswich. Barcelona. England. Even Sunderland.
For one weekend, the rivalries didn’t count. Sir Bobby Robson belonged to the whole of football.
Not long after joining Chelsea, Vinnie Jones went back to Watford, with a couple of football mates kipping at his place. One of them looked out of the window one day and spotted a woman on roller skates.
“Wahey, look at this!”
Jones went over to the window.
“Oh my God! I can’t believe it!”
It was Tanya. They'd met aged 12, had a brief teenage romance and lost touch. Years later he was back in his old house and she was living two doors away, going through a divorce.
“Do I believe in fate? It’s all very spooky.”
By that point he was known as one of the hardest men in English football. Tanya's path had been very different. At 21, after giving birth to her daughter Kaley, her heart failed and she needed an emergency transplant. She survived, but it left her with medication and health problems for the rest of her life.
When Jones decided he wanted to marry her, he spoke to her dad first.
“You know what you’re taking on?”
“Yeah, I do know and I’m going to take care of her and look after her.”
He never thought of himself as her rescuer. If anything, he reckoned it was the other way round.
“I feel she was saved to save me, and I was meant to look after her.”
They got married in Watford in 1994. Tanya brought Kaley, whom Jones went on to adopt, and he brought his son Aaron. Over the years she fought off cervical cancer twice and lived with the aftermath of her transplant, while he moved from football into acting and the family ended up in Los Angeles. Illness was never allowed to call the shots.
“We haven’t got time to think about ‘what if’ and ‘what about’. We make the most of life.”
“We’ve been through a lot, so I just want her to enjoy life and for us to grow old together.”
In 2013 they were both diagnosed with melanoma. Jones had a malignant growth taken from under his eye and was eventually cleared. Tanya wasn't as fortunate. The cancer kept coming back, and for six years he was at every appointment and every treatment, exactly as he'd promised her dad.
On Christmas Eve 2018, already in a great deal of pain, Tanya found out the cancer had spread to her brain.
“That was the first time we broke down together.”
Even so, she wouldn't let it ruin Christmas for anyone else. Doctors put her on steroids and she kept celebrating through the pain.
“She wanted to get through the Christmas.”
Jones later thought she probably knew what was coming before the rest of them were ready to accept it.
“I think she knew she wasn’t going to make next Christmas.”
In July 2019, doctors told him they'd run out of treatments.
“In that last week of her life when the doctors said there were no more treatments, I never told her she was dying.”
“We never spoke of that, I didn’t want her to know.”
He spent every night beside her in hospital, and Kaley came in every morning.
“In the hospital I slept there every night and Kaley would come every morning.”
“She has never ever slept one night in hospital without me there. I have always been by her side.”
In the end his only request to the doctors was that she wouldn't be in pain, so they let her go home. The family stayed by her over the next few days, still chatting to her as she slept because she could probably hear them.
On the morning of July 6th, Jones heard her cough and ran in. Her breathing had changed. Kaley, Tanya's parents, her brother and the rest of the family gathered at her bedside.
“We knew it was the end, we were cuddling her.”
“I kissed her a lot and told her I loved her. I kept saying, ‘I love you, I love you’.”
Her breathing slowed, then stopped. After 25 years of marriage, Tanya passed away with Jones and her family around her. She was just 53.
Later, tucked among her diaries, Jones came across a card. On the front:
“Always believe something wonderful is about to happen.”
And inside, her final message to him.
“To my love Vin, something wonderful happens to me every day. It’s being with you.”
“You are my morning sunshine the moment I wake. All my love, Tanya.”
To be fair this is pretty spot on why poor Kvaratskhelia isn't talked about more... 😅😅
One of the best players in the world and hardly ever gets a mention...
Igor Thiago's story makes it impossible not to root for him, on the pitch and off it:
▪️ He was just 13 years old when his father died.
▪️ He gave up football to work as a bricklayer and help keep his family going.
▪️ In 2019, Cruzeiro's youth academy gave him a shot.
▪️ By 2020, aged 19, he'd made his professional debut in Série B.
▪️ In 2021, while Cruzeiro were scrapping to avoid falling into Série C, he was fighting depression too.
▪️ In 2022, he joined Ludogorets in Bulgaria.
▪️ He caught the eye there and earned a move to Club Brugge.
▪️ In Belgium, he turned into one of the best strikers in the league.
▪️ In 2024, Brentford brought him to the Premier League.
▪️ He's become one of England's top scorers, with only Haaland ahead of him.
▪️ That form got him called up by the Brazilian national team.
▪️ Now he's battling for a spot in Brazil's World Cup squad.
From laying bricks to chasing a World Cup place. Proper resilience, and he's not done yet.
Reece James was just 18 when Chelsea loaned him out to Wigan Athletic in the Championship back in 2018.
He made 45 appearances that season and walked off with Wigan's Player of the Year, Players' Player of the Year and Goal of the Season. Plenty of Wigan fans still rank him among the best ever to pull on the shirt. He wore the armband in his last game, then gave £3,000 when the club hit financial trouble in 2020.
“I will never forget what this club has done for me.” - Reece James, 2019
One season, and he never forgot them. Proper class. 🔵👏
The calmest, most peaceful XI ever assembled 🤣🤣🤣
The referee would need a second whistle and a riot van by half-time... 😭
Harry, an 18-year-old Leeds United fan, has just got his 3rd round of chemotherapy done, which takes him to the halfway mark.
Not a single complaint out of him either, and he's up on his feet in the shirt. Absolute warrior 👏🏻👏🏻
In November 2011, Billy Sharp lined up for Doncaster against Middlesbrough just three days after losing his son Luey Jacob, who was only two days old.
He hadn't trained and had hardly eaten, but he phoned Dean Saunders before the game and said he wanted to play. He wanted to score for his boy. Doncaster picked him.
The whole Keepmoat Stadium stood for a minute's applause for Luey before kick-off. Then, 14 minutes in, the ball fell to Sharp and he volleyed it first time with his left foot, over Jason Steele and into the net.
He pulled his shirt up straight away to reveal the message underneath.
“That’s for you son.”
That would usually be a yellow card. Referee Darren Deadman took one look at him and kept it in his pocket.
Afterwards, Sharp thanked both sets of fans.
“My goal had to be something special tonight for my special boy.”
“I’m so proud of him, and his mum.”
His partner Jade shared a message too.
“Daddy did Luey proud tonight.”
Doncaster went on to lose 3-1, but the result was the last thing anyone remembered. Even Middlesbrough boss Tony Mowbray knew what the night was really about.
“For him to score a wonder-goal, your headlines should be there really.”
“A goal from heaven.”
Right call from Darren Deadman. Some moments are bigger than the rulebook.
José Mourinho offering the fourth official a screen to check the replay years before VAR was even a thing 😭
He really was a visionary.. 😂
He scored, pulled his shirt off, and the vest underneath said everything about who that goal was really for. ❤️
Years later and it's still impossible to watch without feeling something..
Some dad sticking up for his lad after a stranger had a go at him online. Rugby has a place for every shape and size, and nobody should be telling a kid in the under 12s he doesn't belong.
Keep going, Alfie 👏
