One of Newcastle United’s greatest goal scoring partnerships.
Posted on June 28th, 2009 | 23 Comments |
Born in Chile to an english mother and chilean father, the Robledo brothers found themselves moving to England as small children when their home sick mother moved back to the small mining town in South Yorkshire where her family lived. After playing amateur football while working down the pit, George signed professional terms with Barnsley in 1943 when he was 16. On the opening day of the postwar season George was to score a hat-trick on his league debut.
“Pancho” as George was known to his Newcastle team mates, quickly established what was to become one of the great goal scoring partnerships in Newcastle United’s history when he partnered the great Jackie Milburn. By the end of his first season at the Toon he had earned himself a call up to the Chilean national team to play in the 1950 World Cup being held in Brazil.
By the time of the second Wembley final against Arsenal in 1952, Ted had joined his brother in the team and George scored the winning goal that day to award Newcastle the FA Cup for the second successive year. George finished the 1951-52 season as the league’s top goal scorer with 33 league goals versus Jackie Milburn’s 28. The 1952-53 season saw him score 18 times and by the time he left Newcastle he had scored 91 goals in 166 games for the Toon of which 82 goals were in the league, making him the highest scoring overseas player in the top flight, a record that was to stand for almost 50 years.
After being courted incessantly by several Chilean clubs the lure of their homeland proved too much, and by the end of the 1953 season they joined Colo Colo of Santiago, five times national champions. George finished top goal scorer in Chile for the next two years where the Robledo brothers were hero worshipped. George finally retired from football in 1961 and led a quiet life as a sports master at an english school in Chile, and a director of Colo Colo. He died of a heart attack 20 years ago but will be forever remembered with great affection from Toon fans of that era (my dad used to wax lyrical about him!). Ted was tough, a hard worker, a good passer of the ball and good team player. Sadly, we will never know for sure what happened to him. What we do know is the Robledo Brothers play an important part in our history.
This article came out of the blue. Good player he sounds.