FeatureOne of us: How Andy Robertson forged an eternal bond with Liverpool supporters
Having arrived in an unheralded transfer from Hull City in 2017, Robertson departs Anfield nine years later carrying legendary status.
Sure, his success with the Reds can be quantified in cold, hard statistics: eight major trophies won, including two Premier League titles and the Champions League, across 378 appearances.
Sixty-nine assists – only 14 players have ever recorded more for the club – is a mightily impressive total for a full-back, too.
But numbers are not why ‘Robbo’ connected so naturally with the fans.
Instead, it is his realness, his relatability and those unquantifiable moments – that lung-busting press against Manchester City immediately springs to mind – that will forever be etched in supporters’ collective memory.
Fans see Scotland’s captain – who hails from Clarkston, a small town on the outskirts of Glasgow – as a representative of them on the pitch and that, he says, ‘means a lot’.
“I think any team that I’ve played for – but Liverpool is the peak of that – but any time I’ve stepped on the pitch for whatever team I’ve played for I’ve always tried to make the fans proud of the left-back they see playing in that position,” he explains, in Robbo: My Liverpool, a new LFC Original film that will be released on Thursday (May 28).
“And I think when I signed with Liverpool, it was very clear to me from the very start that values in Liverpool and Glasgow are very similar. The people are very similar, they’ve been brought up in very similar ways and things like that, so it was quite easy for me to kind of then fit into that.
“You know, I’m proud of where I’ve came from, I’m proud of where I got brought up and the upbringing that I had. So, yeah, then when I come to a place that feels so like home away from home, I suppose, then it was just about giving them somebody that they could probably relate to as well and I think I’ve always tried to do that.
“Whether it was my first game, whether it’s my last game, I think I’ve always tried to, I’ve tried to do that for the people of the club and the people that support the club. I think I have managed to do it.”
Liverpool shares a special relationship with Scotland.
Bill Shankly is, of course, the founding father of the club in its modern-day guise and in just one of its 20 top-flight title-winning seasons (1976-77) has a Scot not made a single appearance.
Today, Robertson sits in the company of Liverpool’s greatest Scottish players, but he remembers initially feeling a little overawed by the prospect of following such illustrious predecessors.
“I wanted to prove that I could play at that level because, let’s be honest, there were some fans that were maybe excited about me but a lot of fans were probably underwhelmed that I was coming, £8 million from Hull, it wasn’t the biggest of signings and things like that!” he recalls of his first ambitions upon signing for the Reds in 2017.
“So, I just wanted to prove to myself and prove to everyone else that I could play at the highest level. But then I would say even in the first week of me being at the club you bump into people, you’re staying in the hotel, you have interactions with people within the hotel.
“I knew Liverpool was one of the biggest clubs in the world, of course I did, but I saw then how much they wanted to win, and especially win the Premier League.
“I think any time when we signed anyone back then, the one thing was, ‘Well, hopefully you bring us luck for the Premier League,’ and that was always any Scouser or any Liverpool fan you bumped into, that was what they said.
“So then, from a team’s perspective, I wanted to achieve great things as a team [and] also... there’s always a stat about Scottish players being in the squad and they always win trophies with that.
“Somebody sent me that quite early doors and I’m looking at the list going, ‘Kenny Dalglish, Alan Hansen, Graeme Souness…’ and thinking, ‘How am I going to live up to this?! It’s a bit unfair for me to be put in this category!’
“So, then I was thinking, ‘Oh, maybe I could be the next Scotsman that could go and do that.’
“Then I wanted to win as many trophies as I could and I think we could see the team that was building, [with] an unbelievable manager, and I think slowly but surely the belief started to come that we could be the team to deliver it.”
The scenes before, during and after Robertson’s 378th and final Liverpool appearance against Brentford last weekend told their own story as he was showered with Anfield’s adulation.
So, what does Liverpool FC mean to a player who will go down among its greats?
“The club means everything to me. I think I’ve not been a secret in that,” Robertson concludes.
“The whole, everything within the club, the values they have, everything they stand for, they mean everything and I’m not even getting into the people that are there because that’s what I’ll miss the most, the people in the training ground day to day. I don't think I've quite come to terms with how much I’m going to miss seeing everyone day to day.
“And obviously the fans, the fans are the best fans in the world. Everyone claims they’ve got the best but I do generally believe that Liverpool fans are the best and they’ve certainly been the best for me.
“They’ve been unbelievable with me since day one until day end and yeah, I’m going to miss playing at Anfield.”