Bobby Campbell, football player & manager, Died at 78

  Sports

Robert J Campbell was born on April 23, 1937, and died on November 6, 2015.

He was an English professional football player and later manager.

Bobby began his career with Liverpool, where he also won England Youth international caps.

He then moved on to Portsmouth and later Aldershot.

An injury ended his career in 1966, he turned his hand to coaching, at Portsmouth and then, with greater success, at Queens Park Rangers.

Bobby went on to work under Bertie Mee at Arsenal as first-team coach, after Steve Burtenshaw’s resignation and subsequent departure to Sheffield Wednesday in 1973.

His first managerial job came at Fulham in 1976, after his former boss Alec Stock was sacked.

After four mediocre years where his major achievement was a 1million GBP gross transfer profit, he was sacked when the team made a poor start to the 1980-81 season.

Bobby moved on to Portsmouth, whom he led to the Third Division title in 1982-83. However, he was sacked in May 1984.

Towards the end of the 1987 to 1988 season, Campbell was appointed assistant to manager John Hollins at Chelsea, a 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.

Bobby 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.

Bobby passed away at age 78 in November 2015.