John Robertson, the late Nottingham Forest star and double European Cup winner, is to be honoured with his own street name — near the piece of land featured by The Athletic recently because of its extraordinary production line of young footballers.
Council bosses have decided to create ‘John Robertson Way’ at Viewpark, on the edge of Glasgow, to honour the life of the man who was described by the legendary Forest manager Brian Clough as “the Picasso of football”.
Robertson’s death on Christmas Day, aged 72, has already led to an announcement from Forest that they plan to rename a stand at the City Ground to mark his contribution to their back-to-back European successes in 1979 and 1980, in what would now be called the Champions League.
Robertson scored the decisive goal in the 1980 final against West German champions Hamburg and a year earlier, he was instrumental in helping Clough’s team defeat the Swedish team Malmo to win it for the first time.
Long before then, however, Robertson’s talent was developed on a small grassy area, using two trees as goal-posts, directly outside his house on the street, Woodview, where he grew up.
As The Athletic explained here, that little piece of grass has a remarkable story to tell, given that at least nine of the boys who played with Robertson went on to have their own professional careers.
John Robertson defined an era and inspired generations at Nottingham Forest.
From European nights to domestic glory, his legacy will forever be cherished. pic.twitter.com/JwEfpgz8sU
— Nottingham Forest (@NFFC) December 26, 2025
Iain Munro, the Scotland international, lived four doors from Robertson. Other neighbours included Tommy Coakley, once of Arsenal, as well as John Stevenson from Hearts and his brother, James, who played on the other side of Edinburgh with Hibernian.
Johnny Doyle, a future title winner with Celtic, was another Viewpark boy. Ian Scanlon, later of Notts County, Aberdeen and St Mirren, grew up in the next street to Robertson and Jimmy Johnstone, widely regarded as the greatest Celtic player of all time, lived under a mile away.
Since our January 20 article, the committee of football enthusiasts who look after Johnstone’s memorial garden in Viewpark have been speaking to North Lanarkshire council about doing something to commemorate Robertson’s life and achievements. Other locals have got in touch via email or social media since Robertson’s death.
Those talks with Labour councillor Helen Loughran have now led to an agreement to create John Robertson Way on a new part of the estate, currently being built, on what was once known locally as Texaco park — another of the places where the future Scotland international used to play.
Although Robertson moved to Nottingham at the age of 15, it was noted in the discussions how proud he was to come from Viewpark and how unusual it was for a place of that size, with a population around 15,000, to nurture two of the greatest Scottish footballers in history. Everyone was of the opinion that Viewpark should cherish its football heritage.
As well as being widely acclaimed as Forest’s greatest-ever footballer, Robertson went on to have a successful career as assistant manager to Martin O’Neill, most notably at Leicester City, Celtic and Aston Villa.
If everything goes according to plan, an opening ceremony will be held later this year and it is also hoped that a small plot of land can be set aside to become the John Robertson memorial garden.