Members News: Ex Sky Blue Nineties Forward Hits 57 Today. ‘Happy Birthday’, Robert!!

Robert in the Sky Blue

Last August we announced we had recruited as CCFPA’s latest member former Sky Blue forward Robert Rosario. Now there is another reason to celebrate as the Hammersmith born striker is celebrating a birthday today. Born on 4th March 1966 Robert is 57 years of age today! Congratulations, Robert!

Starting out at Harrow Borough as a youth, it was a fine spell in non-league football for Hillingdon Borough as the seventeen year old forward scored five goals in nine Southern League starts that alerted scouts in the Football League to Robert’s potential. It was Norwich City that completed the deal in December 1983 and he paid back the Carrow Road outfit with 161 appearances across six campaigns though Robert managed just 29 goals for the Canaries. (he also had a short loan spell at Wolverhampton Wanderers in December 1985 where he scored one goal in his two games).

Rosario heads one with Lloyd McGrath looking on

The Sky Blues bought the striker as a replacement for the deeply missed Cyrille Regis (who became a fellow CCFPA member) for £650k in March 1991. Ironically he made his debut against the Canaries at Carrow Road from the bench in a 2-2 draw on 6th April 1991. Despite a slow start to life at Highfield Road the big (though never prolific) striker eventually proved to be a useful asset for Bobby Gould’s Sky Blues as the unselfish player also made goals (especially for forward partner Micky Quinn) as well as scoring some. Both Bobby and Mick are Association members now!

It was something of a surprise when he left to go to the East Midlands toward the end of the 1992-93 season (likely done to boost the ailing finances of the Sky Blues at the time). For City Robert made a total of 67 appearances netting ten times before Brian Clough took him to Nottingham Forest in March 1993 for approaching £0.5m. This turned out to be Cloughie’s last signing as Forest boss!

Robert Rosario in the Sky Blues yellow away kit

In his 27 outings over three years on Trentside, Robert scored just three goals before a serious knee injury all but ended his career. His debut Forest goal came in a 2-1 victory over Tottenham Hotdpur under Clough and couldn’t help Forest avoid relegation from the top flight at the end of that season. Under Cloughie’s successor Frank Clark Robert struggled to get games owing to the form of rival forwards particularly Stan Collymore but contribute enough to collect his runners-up medal before that knee problem saw him retire from English football.

However, Robert did try to reignite his career across the Atlantic in the USA after a loan spell with Greensboro Dynamo whilst at the City ground gave him the taste. Spells with Carolina Dynamo from 1997 (24 games 3 goals) and Charleston Battery in 1998 (22 appearances) were followed by a Carolina return in 1999 this time as player-coach ironically now winning the ‘Defensive Player of the Year’ crown there in 1999. By the time he finally hung up his boots in 2001 and retired from the game in 2002 he had score once in just eleven games with the Dynamo.

 We would love to see you back in Coventry Robert. In the meantime have a great birthday today!

Thanks to Mike Young for sourcing the images.