the majority of people…

…who follow football have a bit of a bastardised perspective on Robbie Lyle (AKA Robbie from Arsenal Fan TV). We can all see him in our mind’s eye, standing next to a member of his ridiculous entourage.

Whether it’s Ty blaming the weather for Arsenal losing at home to Watford, DT’s attempts to channel Trainspotting’s Begbie by screaming into thin air and wearing a perpetual frown, or Troopz’ references to his mum, Robbie and the rest of AFTV seem entirely impossible to take seriously.

And whilst many of us love Robbie’s cast of misfits, they have led to him being rejected by his own. Arsenal fans have argued that Robbie and his gang of goon(er)s have profited off of the club’s failings, undermined Arsenal’s seriousness and caused a disconnect between players and fans. As a result, North London’s pariahs have had to take a step back from their own team, many of them swerving match days for fears of their own safety.

In 2017 Robbie had a police escort out of White Hart Lane after a 2-0 loss against Spurs, where he received a string of racist abuse from fans of his own club. But before the bluds and fams, the Rag and Bone mans, the he’s done it agains, the take your time with its and all the ridiculous rest,

AFTV was ahead of its time in so many ways. Twelve years later, with a slew of podcasts, fan forums, social media pages and reddit forums dedicated to community discussion, it’s easy to forget that this hasn’t always existed - that football discourse was directed by, and limited to, people like Richard Keys and Alan Hansen.

Robbie’s decision to quit his job and give AFTV a crack brought with it a total transformation of the football media landscape. And like the first edition of so many classic genres, Robbie’s AFTV is riddled with flaws.

Its troubled characters with tragic backstories became sporting pundits overnight and were exposed to the cruelty of social media. Its grass-roots nature led to PR disasters, and its impact on the club it claimed to support and the division it caused within Arsenal’s fanbase were detrimental if not disastrous.

But despite this, Robbie’s legacy is still one which has championed community involvement and lowered the barrier of entry into footballing discussion. AFTV’s flaws and commercial shortfalls mean that it is very much ‘cult classic not bestseller’ - amongst all its hilarity and controversies, it should be taken seriously sociologically.

I recently learnt that Lyle was also a Reggae MC in the 1980s with some big time tunes, going by the name Crucial Robbie. His biggest hit ‘Proud to be Black’ came out 26 years ago, when the BNP wasn’t a relic of the past but a present threat.

He has talked candidly and passionately about racism in sport and society, been active within communities, done charity walks and flown to Ghana to promote an international football community. Don Robbie, by any definition, is cool. Maybe at some point he did get lost in the mercenary appeal of AFTV’s huge paychecks and allowed the channel to get out of hand. But what he has done, in sport and in music transcends this shortfalling.

Robbie Lyle really is the don.