He began promisingly with his first European campaign since 1987 and trips to Iceland and Norway.
However, for autumn, that campaign was behind them and three summer signings, defenders Shaun Rooney and Jaden Brown, as well as striker Kevin Van Veen, had left the club in the midst of three unrelated judicial cases.
How did Robinson deal with with that?
“It’s not something that you teach you in the UEFA license course,” he said. “It certainly has been the most test season outside the field.
“All the boys I bring, I have a link with them. You try to meet them as much as you can, so it is not pleasant to see people losing their jobs.
” I think UEFA courses give you the minimum. I feel that managers should contribute given the reality of the problems they find and how they deal with them, whether successful or not, and how you would do things differently.
” But, with a little more experience, you learn to deal with that, you learn to compare it a bit and deal with what you can face.
” You have to be there to try to support people at the same time, so really, very difficult in terms of dealing with people, but also the effect it has on the rest of the team, and trying to raise them again, and I think players have been super ”.
The European campaign, cheerful but short -lived, put their strains to both players and staff.
“It was always a challenge for a club of our size arriving in Europe, competing in Europe, building a team for Europe so fast,” Robinson explained.
“The infrastructure in the Football Club was not established to be in Europe, so much pressure on football club staff, both football and football staff.
” Then, being two points where we were last season at this stage of the League is an absolute testimony of the character of the team and the football club as a whole.
“You can’t expect St Miren continuously to be one of the first six resources and the size of other football clubs, but you must make the cut more frequently than in the past.”