Bobby Robson only really became consistently likeable in his very late days as a manager, in my opinion. He was, for most of his career at Ipswich, a bit of a whiner and whinger, while during his time with England (which ended in now-airbrushed rancour after newspaper coverage of the fact he was cheating on his wife) he was pretty dour for most of the time. It was only when he returned to England, older and much, much more relaxed, with Newcastle that the 'Uncle Bobby' persona really settled as an image. A good and decent man at heart, but that only became really overt in the final few years.