It’s Monday and a busy footballing weekend has passed.

Yesterday, at Newcastle’s St.James Park, an exhibition match between an England XI and a German XI took place to raise money for The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation. The charity is dedicated to developments in the early detection and treatment of cancer and the research into new drugs that will eventually beat the disease, as Sir Bobby has 5 times.

England’s team was predominantly made up of Bobby’s 1990 World Cup team with a band of celebrities populating the subs bench.

Germany’s XI was also made up of some of the 1990 team and other ex-players. They were captained by Lothar Matthaus who led Germany to World Cup success in 1990.

In a thrilling, if not fast paced game England were 2-0 down after 20minutes. England then recovered and pegged Germany back making it 2-2 at half time. Alan Shearer scored the winning penalty in the last 10 minutes.

Before kick-off Sir Bobby enjoyed a long standing ovation from the crowd as he was awarded an Order of Merit from UEFA.

Pablo Counago has been told by manager, Roy Keane, that if he is to stay at Ipswich Town he must fight for his place. Keane had agreed a fee with Swansea City for the Spanish Striker but Counago rejected the move.

In a statement to the Club’s official website Keane said:

‘I’ve no problem with Pablo staying and fighting for his place here’.

Keane has already said that he is looking to bring in some new strikers to the squad so Counago will have to challenge for his first team place.

Jordan Rhodes has also had an offer for him turned down. Ipswich manager Roy Keane wouldn’t say who had made the offer, just that it had been rejected.

Following on from me writing this entry sadly Sir Bobby passed away.

For further reading:

Sir Bobby Robson, CBE, 1993-2009

The Day I Met Sir Bobby

by my dad, Paul Drew