MOST of us are spending more time staring at the TV and reading all the newspapers nowadays.

I was very disappointed and saddened to read this week that a gentleman, who I knew way back in the game, Peter Robinson – a legend at Liverpool – had passed away.

I don’t think anybody in the game has ever had the record he had.

He was a passionate supporter as a schoolboy and was able to even get employed by Liverpool in some respect, when he was only about 14.

Apparently, he used to run messages for the club and 70 years later, he was still involved.

Immediately, when he left school, he became full-time and he worked his way all the way up through, until eventually he was the club’s chief executive.

In my time at Saints, the two gentlemen – apart from managers – who I always loved hearing from and kept in touch with, were Peter and Ken Friar at Arsenal.

Ken and Peter were totally respected. I would get much help from both of them and in those days, there were regular meetings with managers and people like them from all of the clubs.

Ken, similar to Peter, had every title going at Highbury and I think over the past few years has been their lifetime president.

The beauty of having people like them at clubs was when the manager was new, they would sit together and bring them up to date.

When players were being signed, they would handle all the paperwork. If you look up, you would see all of the managers both of them helped at those two big clubs.

They always made sure their clubs kept high positions, which are still there today.

When you played at those clubs, they were always at the door when the bus arrived to welcome you in, take you to the boardroom before and after the games.

That is how we all met up and of course, at the end of the season, there was always the big get togethers at the managers’ function. People like Peter and Ken were always there as well.

Peter will be sadly missed at Liverpool by, not just the club, but all the supporters and God bless him.

The sort of help Peter would give was, for example, when I had heard a whisper that Kevin Keegan, who was playing in Germany for Hamburg, might be ready to come back to England.

I rang Peter and after just a normal talk of ‘how you doing?’ etcetera, I casually dropped in ‘I see Keegan may be coming back, will he be coming back to you?’.

Being the way was Peter was, I wondered whether when Keegan had left Liverpool to go to Germany, they had put a clause in about having first choice if ever he returned.

Peter then told me straight ‘no, we don’t need him here now’. I said ‘I wonder how he is, you haven’t got a phone number by any chance?’.

Peter gave me his private number straight away and the rest is history.

I was able to contact Kevin and after a general chat, I dropped in ‘I gather you might be coming back?’.

I mentioned some of the big names in my team at the time of Channon, Ball etcetera – who I said he would probably be pleased to join in with.

He let me know when he was coming back to England. I met up with him and the deal was done.