Sir Bobby Robson's epic journey has taken him from the County Durham mines to the coal face of Premiership football, via the toughest job in England and a life-saving operation.

The 69-year-old's boundless energy puts people four decades his junior to shame, his mind still as agile as his body was during his days as a footballer.

An impeccable global ambassador for his country and the North-East, Robson has defied Father Time and doctor's orders to restore the pride to Newcastle United.

His upbringing was harsh. Born Robert William Robson in Sacriston on February 18, 1933, he and his four brothers grew up with parents Philip and Lillian in a two-bedroom house in Langley Park.

Aged 15, he earned £3 a week serving his apprenticeship as an electrical engineer in the austere post-war years.

It has bestowed on Robson an inner strength; an indefatigable spirit that serves him well as he shoulders the expectations of Tyneside's fanatical footballing public.

"I went down the pit like my father and my oldest brother Tom, but only for a year-and-a-half before I went into football," he said.

"I've crawled 100 yards - that's almost the length of a football pitch - to get to a coal cutter that had broken down. It's much like a soldier does when snipers are getting at him.

"I crawled through an 18-inch space with thousands of tons of earth above me just held up with props. I didn't like it but I endured it. Yeah, I think my mining roots gave me a certain toughness."

Robson has needed to be tough. As England manager, he was vilified for large parts of his eight-year reign, only to be feted when he led the country to within a penalty shoot-out of the World Cup final in 1990.

He spent the next decade building a reputation as one of Europe's finest coaching minds. In Holland with PSV Eindhoven, at Portuguese giants Sporting Lisbon and FC Porto, and ultimately Barcelona, Robson spread his footballing gospel, educating and enchanting his admirers in equal measure.

Never one to take a backward step, Robson looked cancer square in the eye and won that battle, too.

Seven years ago, a routine doctor's appointment to cure sinus trouble triggered a fight to save his life.

Robson had a malignant melanoma the size of a golf ball inside his face. "It was in August 1995, and the consultant surgeon told me that if nothing was done I'd be dead by January," he recalled.

"They cut round my nostril, severed my lip, took my teeth out. They took the roof of my mouth off.

"I now have an obdurator which fits into my face. I have to push it into a hole in my mouth. Without it, my whole face would collapse and I wouldn't be able to talk."

Having been told he might not be alive in five months' time, Robson was back at work at PSV just eight weeks later.

Now he is back where his heart has always been, among the people he regards as his own.

Deep into his 70th year, he still stands for everything that is good about the game.

Not for him the psycho-babble that some of his colleagues stoop to. Throughout his career, from the triumphs to the traumas, he has always conducted himself with dignity.

Talking to Robson is refreshing. His love of the game - nay, of life itself - is infectious. It is simply impossible to dislike the man, even if your footballing home is the Stadium of Light or the Riverside.

Robson tried to be angry with me once. He was unhappy with something I'd written for another newspaper and was about to vent his spleen.

Twenty seconds later, he had his arm around my shoulder. "It's OK, son," he smiled, "I know it's not your fault. You're a good lad."

He is renowned for his slips of the tongue and his, at times, sieve-like memory. Shola Ameobi, Newcastle's young striker, was asked by the England Under-21 coach if he had a nickname at his club. He replied that he did not.

"But what does Bobby Robson call you?" the coach asked. "Carl Cort," Ameobi sighed.

But his football brain is still razor-sharp. There are few managers, from Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger down, who get the better of him.

He refuses to countenance talk of retirement. "What would I be doing on a Saturday afternoon if I didn't have this excuse?" he is fond of saying. "I'd have to be in the supermarket, fetching a can of beans."

As he stands on the cusp of his next decade, it is a scenario he won't have to live out for sometime yet.