Robins’ life on a planet
for pauper as manager of Rotherham

Mark Robins soaks up the steady evening drizzle of Saltergate and takes the first cruel blow of his club's bright start to the season with the kind of wry smile that you need if you're manager of Rotherham United.

Relegated after having to sell their best players, hindered in a bid for last season's play-offs by a 10-point penalty, Rotherham are trying to wipe out a 17-point deficit after emerging from administration.

Robins has made such a good fist with his bunch of triers and free transfers that he was named Manager of the Month for League Two.

Mark Robins

Robins: doesn't believe in curses

So it was almost nailed on that they would lose to local rivals Chesterfield. Not that Robins buys into such superstition.

'If not defending a cross properly is a curse, then yeah,' he concludes. 'I don't believe in curses - but I do believe in defending the right way.'

It was never easy to defend against Robins the player. A predatory striker who fired Manchester United to the 1990 FA Cup Final before being sold to Norwich, he later won a League Cup medal with Leicester.

Before he left Old Trafford, Robins even kept crowd hero Mark Hughes out of the side for a spell.

Now his old team-mate Sparky is manager of the richest club in football, while Robins chuckles at the idea of a transfer kitty after Rotherham almost went to the wall and had to flit to a Sheffield athletics track this summer.

While Manchester City paid a British record £32.5million for Brazil superstar Robinho from Real Madrid, Robins gave a one-year deal to Omar Garcia, a 24-year-old winger released from Athletic Bilbao reserves.

So isn't there just a little bit of him which envies Hughes' new-found wealth at Middle Eastlands? 'No,' says Robins without hesitation.

'It's a different level, a different, er...' It's on the tip of his tongue. Planet, Mark?

'League - well, planet, yes. We're where we are. We've got a good club and something to build.' And maybe money to spend in January? He laughs.

'I don't think so. I have a squad of 25 and I'll need to move one or two the other way, because it's just too big. A couple will go out on loan.'

There truly is no resentment. Robins may have no budget, but he is grateful for an old-school chairman in Tony Stewart who does not try to pick his team and turns up to games in a suit rather than a replica shirt.

He watched from the old wooden directors' box as Rotherham's best start to a season since 1988 - including Carling Cup wins over Sheffield Wednesday and Wolves - faltered in the 95th minute of a cracking derby.

Had Robins not been forced to replace both his centre halves, it is probable that one of them would have dealt with Robert Page's huge hoist forward for left-back Alan Goodall to inflict the side's first defeat.

So they are still on minus seven points. Nevertheless, they are ahead of fellow sufferers Bournemouth and Luton in the scramble to avoid the drop.

Robins concedes: 'Our target for the season is to get back to parity as quickly as possible then re-assess it. Really, you've got to avoid relegation - when you're deducted 17 points, you've just got to avoid relegation.

'You've got to make sure you pick up points in every game and we lost three here. To be honest, it might do us good. It may just have given us a kick up the backside.

'Everything's gone right for us before - that's the first bit of adversity we've had, with the last kick, and it's how we react to it, how we come back.'

Robins is credited with saving Sir Alex Ferguson from the sack with a third-round FA Cup winner. Robins long ago tired of discussing that footnote in United legend.

But if he was to be remembered as the man who restored Rotherham's pride and Championship status on a shoestring - well, now you're talking.

Robins’ life on a planet for pauper as manager of Rotherham