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BOOTLAND NO MORE Herald Sports Reporter Herald, Thursday June 14, 2007 PANJIM, June 14: Former Indian and Dempo Sports Club coach Robert Allison Bootland, popularly known as Bob, died of a heart attack early on Wednesday morning. Family sources said Bootland -- India's first foreign club coach -- complained of unusual chest pain last night and was rushed to the Goa Medical College, at Bambolim. Bootland breathed his last early on Wednesday morning. He was 72. For the past couple of months, the British coach who came to India in 1977 as a tourist and made Goa his home -- marrying Goan school teacher and athlete Fatima from whom he has two sons -- was restricted to his Divar residence after being riddled by health woes. Bob was recently operated for a tumour besides suffering from thrombosis -- formation of a clot inside a blood vessel, obstructing the flow of blood through the circulatory system. He is survived by his wife Fatima, sons Allison and Ronald. the funeral date will be announced after Allison and Ronald return from the United Kingdom. The outspoken Newcastle-born coach first came to India in 1977 on a vacation. He was invited to watch Dempo Sports Club play in the Senior Division Football League, before the coaching offer came his way. Bob's coaching stints with Dempo Sports Club, Vasco Sports Club, Tata's, JCT Mills and the Indian football team was a mixed bag. While Dempo won the Rovers Cup twice -- in 1978 and 1986 -- under his stewardship and JCT emerged triumphant in the 1983 Durand Cup, Bob's Indian football assignment was the subject of much debate. Among the only three English coaches to have trained the Indian football team -- Albert Flatley (1953) and Harry Wright (1963) being the others before him -- Bob showed much promise when he was named coach for the 1982 Goodwill Tour to Russia, but ruffled many feathers with his no-nonsense approach. Bob is among those rare coaches who left an international tour midway. He left India's pre-Olympic team in Singapore after falling out of favour with the then Yugoslavian coach Ciric Milovan -- among the better names to have coached the Indian football team. Bob was Milovan's deputy for the pre-Olympic qualifier. Bob also traded verbal blows with the All India Football Federation bosses on more occasions than one. "Politics in Indian football is killing the players. AIFF officials at the helm -- most of them influential politicians -- know little or nothing about the game," the plain-speaking coach said in one of his many fiery interviews. * * * * * GOAN FOOTBALL DOFFS ITS HAT TO A THINKING COACH Herald Sports Reporter Herald, Thursday, June 14, 2007 PANJIM, JUNE 13: Goan football's closely-knit family today paid rich tributes to former Indian and Dempo Sports Club coach Bob Bootland, who died of a heart attack early on Wednesday morning. In 1978, long before Indian football was obsessed with all things foreign, Dempo Sports Club put their faith in the Newcastle man, making him India's first foreign club coach. "His coaching philosophy holds good till today. He was a players' coach, talking to us for long hours and wanting to solve our personal problems. He believed that a player could give his best on the field only if he was happy off the field," informs Armando Colaco, who trained under the British coach at Dempo in the early 'eighties and is now the coach of the highly-successful Dempo team himself. Bob was the first to introduce the 4-3-3 style of play in India, a formation that has now found favour with some of the biggest clubs in the world. Barcelona play with this system with with Samuel Eto'o, Ronaldinho and Ludovic Giuly, while, until last year, Jose Mourinho favoured the tactical system of Chelsea. "For me, Bob was a thinking coach. I've heard many things from him," said Armando. Dempo Sports Club manager Mahesh Lotlikar shared an extremely friendly relationship with the Divar-based coach. He was among the very few who used to keep in regular contact with Bob, even though the coach seemed cut-off from the rest of the football fraternity. Mahesh is reported to have helped former India coach Sukhwinder Singh -- who convinced Bob to join JCT Mills in 1983 -- share some "unforgettable moments" with the coach at his Divar residence. "Bob was an uncanny coach, but overall a gem of a person. His ideas were fresh and helped us a great deal. Bob will be missed," maintains Mahesh. Significantly, Bob Bootland was the first to moot the idea of a National Football League, way back in 1986. His comments were then rubbished as far-fetched, but a decade later, Indian launched the high-profile National Football League, bearing close resemblance to Bob's thoughts of a multi-team league being played on a home and away basis. "I've never seen much of Bob, but from what little I saw of him in training, he seemed quite different from the rest of the pack," says Arjuna awardee Brahmanand Shankwalkar. Dempo veterans Maurice Afonso and Camilo Gonsalves were among many others who paid their tributes to the coach. (ENDS)