David Robertson hoping Kashmir spell can help Peterhead survival bid

The Balmoor club are in a dire predicament and no mistake. But Robertson, the former Aberdeen, Rangers, Leeds United and Scotland left back who has returned to his homeland and taken charge after five years at Real Kashmir, has both dealt with and overcome far, far greater obstacles.

Production of a Bollywood movie that will chronicle his time in Asia – already the subject by two outstanding BBC Scotland documentaries, Real Kashmir FC and Return to Real Kashmir – was put on hold by the Covid outbreak but is very much “in the pipeline”.

Whatever happens at Peterhead will not be nearly as dramatic as his stint in a disputed territory which China, India and Pakistan all lay claim to parts of.  An Oscar-winning screenplay writer would have struggled to pen a script with so many plot twists.

After the troubled region’s special status was revoked and their devolved parliament abolished back in 2019, tensions heightened in the area and the Scot worked with a constant backdrop of violence between Indian troops and militant groups. 

“Nothing will faze me at Peterhead,” he said. “All of the coaching qualifications in the world couldn’t prepare you for what I experienced in Kashmir. I had to run the club from top to bottom. I wasn’t just the manager.

“Every day you woke up to serious issues. The football part of it was actually easy. It was an escape. It was the 101 other things I had to deal with which were difficult. You would have sniffer dogs checking for bombs in the stadium before matches. That won’t happen at Peterhead.”

Not, though, that Robertson is any way underestimating the difficulty or magnitude of the task which lies ahead of him.

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He appreciates that taking over from Jim McInally, who stood down last month after 11 years in charge after growing frustrated at his inability to offer players the same wages that Lowland League outfits two tiers below were paying, will be a tall order.  

“Jim won promotions, titles, cups, led the team to a win over Rangers at Ibrox,” he said. “He was very successful and very consistent. He showed a lot of loyalty to the club as well. It was a big surprise when he resigned. But I suppose that is football. It takes its toll. It is perhaps similar to me at Kashmir in some respects.

“It was a difficult decision to leave. It was fantastic, a great chapter in my life. It was such a wonderful club and obviously I did pretty well. They wanted me to stay. But I just felt that it was time to come home.”

It is 15 long years since Robertson last worked in this country. But the man who won no fewer than 14 major honours in Scottish football as a player has no concerns about his ability to readjust to the unique demands of the game here. His travels have driven home to him the sport is the effectively the same the world over.

“What I think I was very, very successful at in Kashmir was fostering a good team spirit,” he said. “We had a lot different personalities, religions, nationalities in the squad. You had guys from the Ivory Coast, France, Spain, South Korea and India.

“I didn’t realise this before I went out, but there are about 10 different languages in India. They have even got their own language in Kashmir. Fortunately for me, the majority of them spoke English.

“We also had players who were Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian. They would all pray at different times of the day. I would join in with them sometimes. Every successful dressing room I have ever been in either as a player or as a coach had that togetherness and we had that at Kashmir. That will be important at Peterhead.”

Robertson played under two of the greatest managers Scotland have ever produced – Sir Alex Ferguson at Aberdeen when he was starting out in the 1980s and Walter Smith at Rangers during the Nine-In-A-Row era in the 1990s – and both men have clearly influenced his approach.

“I think the great skill those managers had was their man management,” he said. “There was always a happy dressing room, there was always harmony there. That is vital at any club. It is no different if you are in India or if you are in Scotland.”

When he was scrubbing out toilets and cleaning floors in the Real Kashmir stadium in Srinagar, however, Robertson did wonder if either Ferguson or Smith had ever stooped to such levels. “I used to think: ‘I bet Alex and Walter never had to do any of this stuff’,” he said. 

The 54-year-old, whose first match as Peterhead manager a fortnight ago ended in a 3-0 defeat to Kelty Hearts away at New Central Park, remains upbeat about the remainder of the 2022/23 campaign despite the issues he is wrestling with.

“We have got quite a big squad,” he said. “But unfortunately a number of them are injured. We have had players come in late who have not quite been up to speed, we have had lads playing out of position. I have to be careful with the players who have not been involved a lot. It is a bit of a balancing act.

“We have got to start winning games and picking up points. But I am mentally tough and have a strong belief. There are still another 19 games to be played and 57 points up for grabs. The aim is to finish as high up the league.”

Did Robertson learn to maintain a positive outlook in the face of adversity during his trophy-laden tenure in Govan?

“The main thing I felt about Walter was that nothing affected him,” he said. “I always remember the bad spell that we went through at the start of the 1994/95 season. We lost to AEK Athens, Celtic and Falkirk in Europe, the league and the cup the space of a week.

“There were people calling for his head. But it honestly never bothered him. When you are the manager at Rangers or Celtic and you are second best then you are going to get a bit of stick.”

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Robertson has followed developments at his former club Rangers this season from afar. He is interested to see how Michael Beale, who only became a manager in his own right in the summer when he took over from Mark Warburton at Queens Park Rangers, fares at Ibrox.

The former left back believes that so much depends on what the Englishman has at his disposal and emphasised that the presence of top class footballers and strong personalities in his squad will be every bit as important as his tactical wherewithal and motivational qualities. 

“A big factor in the success that Rangers enjoyed when I was there was the calbire of the squad which Walter had,” he said. “But he also created that dressing room. He had characters like Ally McCoist, Ian Durrant, Mark Hateley and Andy Goram in there.”

Robertson - whose foul-mouthed outbursts on the training field and the touchline, as featured in BBC documentaries which have attracted a cult following, are very much at odds with his quiet nature – did his bit as well.

He brought as much joy to Real Kashmir supporters as he did to Rangers fans by leading them into the I-League in India – the first team from the area to reach that level – in 2018 and then keeping them there.

“At our first game there were about 300 people there and they were all men,” he said. “At the second game after we got promoted, we played a famous team called Mohun Bagan and there were thousands there, men, women and children.

“Seeing the smiles on their faces was one of the most pleasing aspects of my time there. There are no movie theatres there, no shopping malls, no fast food outlets. There is not much for the young people of Kashmir to do. When we played our games it was somewhere for them to go.

“I can remember in one game the authorities limited the crowd to 2,000 because of a political issue. But there were so many people outside they thought it would be safer to let them in. The stadium had a capacity of 14,000 and there were around 26,000 there. It was just one of the many bizarre things I experienced.”

The Artic conditions which have enveloped Scotland in recent days have certainly not troubled him.

“Every away game that Real Kashmir played involved a lot of travel,” he said. “We would have to catch two flights and it would take two days. We would go from sub-zero temperatures to 90 degree heat. That was tough.”

Robertson received the British Empire Medal at the British High Commission in New Dehli in May for his services to Kashmir and for strengthening United Kingdom-India relations. He will deserve another gong if he can keep Peterhead up this season. But do not bet against him doing just that.