Hull’s Andy Robertson used to flog Robbie Williams tickets for £5 an hour… now his club value him at more than £10m
The Tigers left-back has revealed his life before he was a professional footballer and his failed transfer to Burnley
FOUR years ago, Andy Robertson was earning just £5 an hour flogging tickets for a Robbie Williams gig.
Now the Hull defender is attracting transfer bids that dwarf what that sell-out stadium show made.
Burnley’s failed £10million deal for Robertson in the January window was a reminder of how much his life has changed since he worked in the events department at Hampden Park.
Back then, he was playing for Scottish part-timers Queen’s Park. And the left-back, 22, admitted: “Sometimes you do think, ‘Bloody hell — I’ve come a long way. What a journey’.”
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It is a journey which dates back to when Robertson was devastatingly dumped by boyhood club Celtic at 15 for being too small.
But he was thankfully offered a career lifeline by Queen’s Park, who were then in the Scottish fourth tier.
And after finishing school, he gambled by putting off university to focus on football — even though he was not being paid.
Robertson, whose Tigers host Liverpool today, recalled: “I spoke to mum and dad and said if it didn’t work out, I’d do something else with my life.
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“For the first three or four months I didn’t have a job and my parents had to fund me.
“You didn’t get wages at Queen’s Park, you just got travel expenses — £6 for each journey, so £18 a week. It was just enough to put petrol in the car me and my brother shared.”
But with training only on in the evenings, the 18-year-old Scot found himself “sitting all day in the house”. So it was then he took up a full-time post in the offices at Hampden — Scotland’s national stadium and where Queen’s Park play their home games.
Robertson said: “I got a job on the corporate side of things.
“I was on the phones taking orders for the private boxes for big events — concerts like Robbie Williams, as well as cup finals and Scotland games.
“I sorted tickets and people came and collected them.
“It was good for me because it gave me a wage, even it was only like £5 or £6 an hour.
“But it wasn’t something I wanted to do long term.”
Robertson finally became a full-time footballer when Dundee United signed him in the summer of 2013 — and he even played at Hampden in the Scottish Cup final at the end of that season.
Hull then came calling and he is midway through his third campaign with them.
But it looked like he was about to move on again when Premier League rivals Burnley had a £10m bid accepted before the transfer window shut.
New Tigers boss Marco Silva, however, refused to let him leave.
And Robertson said: “I spoke to the manager, who was very open about it and said, ‘I don’t want to lose you’.
“That’s always nice to hear because you want the manager to have faith in you.
“On the flip side, it’s also nice to get recognition from other bosses, especially Sean Dyche, who is talked about very highly.
“But after my manager spoke to me and said he wasn’t letting me go, that was it. It was out of my head, and I’m happy to be working under him.”
Other players might have stropped or gone on strike after not getting their move.
But down-to-earth Robertson is not that type of character — and there are two specific tales that prove it.
He revealed: “I bought a new house for my parents and brother to live in after I’d been at Hull for about six months.
“It felt really good doing that for them, because of how much sacrifice all three of them made for me.
“I wanted to pay them back by hopefully giving them a better life.”
And Robertson continued: “When it was my 21st birthday, my view was that I didn’t really need anything.
“So I told people I’d prefer them to put £5 or £10 into an envelope and donate them to our local food bank in Scotland. Seeing their faces when I handed them the cheque was better for me than getting presents.”
Robertson, though, knows he cannot afford to be charitable against Liverpool this afternoon.
And he hopes second-bottom Hull, whose confidence is sky-high after their midweek goalless draw at Manchester United, can pile more misery on the Reds — and boost their own survival bid.
Robertson added: “When a team like Liverpool is on a bad run, somebody always gets a backlash.
“But we are hoping that is not going to be us and that we can continue our good performances and continue our fight for survival.
“There is a still long way to go but I’m hopeful that, with this manager, we can stay in the Premier League.”