The survivor who turned jeers to cheers

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It was 1983 and after a campaign which started poorly and got worse before finishing encouragingly, Robson had failed to secure a place in the European Championship finals in France.

Sir Bobby Robson proudly leads his England team out

Draws against Denmark and Greece had left England with ground to make up but a 1-0 defeat by the Danes at Wembley in September 1983 was to prove the key result.

Robson was pilloried and branded 'a plonker' by the Press. 'Even the President of the United States would not be treated like this,' he complained. His team rallied, winning their last two games, but Denmark held their nerve to win 2-0 in Greece and top the group by a point from England.

The FA resisted the clamour to sack the manager, the outstanding candidate when he replaced Ron Greenwood in 1982 after impressive work with Ipswich and England Under 21s, but results and performances worsened.

England lost three of their first five games in 1984 — beaten 2-0 in France, 1-0 in Wales and 2-0 to the USSR in front of less than 40,000 at Wembley. In between came a scratchy 1-0 win at home to Northern Ireland and a draw in Scotland — an awful sequence of results. After the USSR defeat, Robson was jeered from the pitch as angry fans leaned over the tunnel to spit at him and throw beer. He admitted he felt like crying after what he described as the 'darkest day' of his career.

A tour to South America to fill a summer left empty by the Euro 84 failure sparked his revival. England won in Brazil, where John Barnes scored his memorable solo goal and Mark Hateley emerged as the striker to spearhead qualification for the World Cup in Mexico in 1986.

Robson would suffer more ridicule and abuse but he reached three major tournaments and lasted eight years in the job, ending on a high with a place in the World Cup semi-finals in Italia 90. Will the FA have the bottle to back McClaren if England's hope ends today? Will a nation look back sheepishly after he has led the team through a successful 2014 World Cup campaign in Brazil? Somehow it seems unlikely.