Robert George Campbell (23 April 1937 – 6 November 2015)
was an English professional
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
player and later manager.
Playing career
He began his career with
Liverpool, where he also won England Youth international caps. He then moved on to
Portsmouth and later
Aldershot.
Coaching and managerial career
After injury ended his career in 1966, he turned his hand to coaching, at Portsmouth and then, with greater success, at
Queens Park Rangers. He went on to work under
Bertie Mee at
Arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...
as first-team coach, after
Steve Burtenshaw's resignation and subsequent departure to
Sheffield Wednesday in 1973.
His first managerial job came at
Fulham
Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...
in 1976, after his former boss
Alec Stock was sacked. Campbell made a poor start winning no games in his first 3 months as manager. After four years of underachievement Campbell was sacked when the team made a poor start to the
1980–81 season after a disastrous relegation the previous season. He moved on to
Portsmouth, whom he led to the
Third Division
In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below.
Association football
*Belgian Thir ...
title in
1982–83. However, he was sacked in May 1984 after Portsmouth only narrowly avoided being immediately relegated back to the Third Division. Campbell then returned to Queens Park Rangers for a stint as reserve team manager, before taking up the same position at
Chelsea in the summer of 1987.
Towards the end of the
1987–88 season, Campbell was appointed assistant to manager
John Hollins, with the team in the midst of a relegation battle; one month later Hollins was sacked and Campbell appointed caretaker manager until the end of the season. Campbell was unable to turn around the club's fortunes in the eight games which remained that season, and they were relegated via the short-lived play-off system.
He made amends the following season, however, as his side romped to promotion as
Second Division champions with a haul of 99 points. A year later, he led to Chelsea to a 5th-place finish in the
First Division, their highest league placing since 1970. He was relieved of his managerial duties after an 11th-place finish and appointed personal assistant to Chelsea chairman
Ken Bates in 1991.
Campbell went on to coach in
Kuwait where he managed the two biggest clubs in the country:
Al-Arabi SC and
Qadsia SC.
Death
He died on 6 November 2015.
References
External links
Liverpool profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Campbell, Bobby
1937 births
2015 deaths
Aldershot F.C. players
Arsenal F.C. non-playing staff
Chelsea F.C. managers
English football managers
English footballers
English people of Scottish descent
Fulham F.C. managers
Association football wing halves
Liverpool F.C. players
Portsmouth F.C. managers
Portsmouth F.C. players
Footballers from Liverpool
Expatriate football managers in Kuwait
English Football League players
English Football League managers
English expatriate football managers
England youth international footballers
Queens Park Rangers F.C. non-playing staff
Kuwait Premier League managers
Qadsia SC managers
Al-Arabi SC (Kuwait) managers