Reverb-TV Matt Lidis Column

Bobby Robson died recently. So did Michael Jackson, but I hated that freakish, plastic man-child so that's the last we speak of him.

Bobby Robson. He was a footballer, then a football manager. Apparently he was a really nice man. Whether or not he was the lovely bloke everybody said he was doesn't really matter, I never met him. He could've been a right royal c*nt - it makes no difference to me. But he is dead and I do sympathise with his family and friends.

When famous people die we are, rather bizarrely, left with tiny secondary memories of them. Video and photo recollections of people we have never spoken to or even looked in the eye. (I never look the bloke who runs my local Costcutter in the eye because he scares me, if he died I'm sure my memories of exchanging money for goods whilst staring at the chewing gum stand would fade without lasting scars). Anyway - those second hand memories of the dead and famous are normally pleasant ones. And for anyone to have a pleasant memory of a virtual stranger is testimony to the eerie power of the media.

The whole point of dwelling on a death is to grieve. To reflect, to reminisce, to yearn, to suffer and to, ultimately, move on. How strange to grieve a person who, without the phantom introduction by our distant-uncle media, we would never have known. As Bobby Robson's family begin the long and winding road to coming to terms with their loss we are, strangely, given the same task to complete on a much smaller scale. All our roads are as long as our love for the dead. The Robson family face a battle with the darkest end of the spectrum of human emotion that will take years to come to terms with. Our journey might involve us thinking about him for a bit as we look over the double page photo spread of his life in a red-top paper as we plough through a Saturday morning fry-up. Well, that's what I did…it seemed.

With breakfast in belly and paper left in café, grieving complete, I went about my Saturday having come to terms with the death of an old man from Newcastle who liked football. Returning to my flat from whatever Saturday induced retail therapy I'd filled the afternoon with, I put down my shopping bags, filled up the kettle and switched on the radio.

What came out of the speakers took my completely by surprise. It was World In Motion by New Order. The first single I ever bought (no, really - it was). I don't really need to tell you this, but it was the England national football team's world cup song form Italia '90. A world cup team that should have come home with the trophy. And that team was managed by Bobby Robson.

In the microseconds it took between me realising what song it was and the reason they were playing a 19 year old novelty football record on Saturday afternoon BBC 6 music I was transported to another world. A world where I was ten years old, the sun was beating down, I had a full bowl of microwave popcorn, we were going to win the world cup and I was just a few short of filling the Panini sticker album. That summer was my first real taste of hope, of romance, of community, of opera for fuck's sake and - most of all - of real disappointment. One grey haired old boy in a grey suit was leading us through all this and that old boy was Bobby Robson. He really, really wanted England to win that trophy.

There was a good chance I'd heard World In Motion in the very recent past as New Order are one of my favourite bands and it's on a best-of compilation I made myself years ago. But it had never done this to me before. I realised that the death of Bobby Robson and the feint hint of grief I felt for him over that breakfast had opened up a tiny crack in my nostalgic heart that proved big enough for a pop song to rip open. Bernard Sumner's effortless lyrics and Peter Hook's lolloping bass led me back in time to a place where it felt like I actually was ten and was playing the record on my dad's turntable. I was suddenly grieving my lost childhood, the dying summer, Chris Waddle ballooning that penalty over the bar and, of course the death of the manager. I'll be honest; my eyes were a bit damp.

As that quality Italian house piano bit in the middle faded and the John Barnes rap kicked in, I was suddenly brought hurtling back to 2009 and realised that even though it is a memorable record, it is (despite what John Barnes will have you think) a football song, with footballers chanting in the background. All other football songs have either been far too tuneless, ale, and skinheads to stir up any kind of sensitive emotion (see Vindaloo or The Anfield Rap) or, at the other end of the scale, seemingly sod all to do with football (see Don't Come Home Too Soon or that Spice Girls one). And as for that contrived Three Lions xenophobic St. Georges cross thinly veiled racism "we invented football we did" nonsense…well, just fuck off.

It's a tough task for a song to straddle the gap between heart and feet, over tears and soil - but World In Motion did that in a way that reminds us, even when somebody dies, that life is a beautiful game. But that's all it is.