A ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the death of Sir Bobby Robson has taken place in Newcastle. The legend was remembered before two of his former clubs PSV Eindhoven and Newcastle United played in a pre-season friendly at St James's Park on Saturday. Stan Valckx, captain of PSV during Sir Bobby's time at the club in the early 1990s, presented the current United manager, Chris Hughton, with Valckx's shirt. Sir Bobby, died aged seventy six on 31 July 2009. A one-minute applause was observed by the sixteen thousand plus crowd after the presentation of the shirt, which happened prior to kick-off. Robson, who grew up at Langley Park near Durham, was first diagnosed with cancer in 1991. 
He beat bowel cancer in 1992, a malignant melanoma in 1995 and a tumour in his right lung and a brain tumour, both in 2006. In 2007 he vowed to 'battle as I've always done' following the start of chemotherapy treatment after being diagnosed with cancer for the fifth time. He set up his cancer charity, the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, in 2008 to raise funds for a trial and research centre at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital. More than two and half million pounds have been raised since it was launched - more than £1m of that was raised or donated since his death. A skillful wing half with West Bromwich Albion, Fulham and England during the 1950s, Sir Bobby managed Ipswich Town to the greatest period in their history between 1969 and 1982. He was England manager from 1982 to 1990, taking the national side to the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico and reaching the semi-finals four years later despite an often uncomfortable relationship with the more scummy end of the tabloid press, something often forgotten in the wake of his quasi-deification by many of those self-same newspapers since his death. He sent a decade managing some of the best clubs in the Netherlands (PSV), Portugal (Sporting Lisbon, FC Porto) and Spain (Barcelona) before an emotional return to Newcastle, the club he had supported as a boy, in 1999 saving the club from what seemed a certain relegation in his first season and then leading an exciting young United side that he built to three Top Five finishes in the Premier league in the early years of the next decade. The match between United and PSV, perhaps fittingly, ended in a 2-2 draw.
He beat bowel cancer in 1992, a malignant melanoma in 1995 and a tumour in his right lung and a brain tumour, both in 2006. In 2007 he vowed to 'battle as I've always done' following the start of chemotherapy treatment after being diagnosed with cancer for the fifth time. He set up his cancer charity, the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, in 2008 to raise funds for a trial and research centre at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital. More than two and half million pounds have been raised since it was launched - more than £1m of that was raised or donated since his death. A skillful wing half with West Bromwich Albion, Fulham and England during the 1950s, Sir Bobby managed Ipswich Town to the greatest period in their history between 1969 and 1982. He was England manager from 1982 to 1990, taking the national side to the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico and reaching the semi-finals four years later despite an often uncomfortable relationship with the more scummy end of the tabloid press, something often forgotten in the wake of his quasi-deification by many of those self-same newspapers since his death. He sent a decade managing some of the best clubs in the Netherlands (PSV), Portugal (Sporting Lisbon, FC Porto) and Spain (Barcelona) before an emotional return to Newcastle, the club he had supported as a boy, in 1999 saving the club from what seemed a certain relegation in his first season and then leading an exciting young United side that he built to three Top Five finishes in the Premier league in the early years of the next decade. The match between United and PSV, perhaps fittingly, ended in a 2-2 draw. 
