“Be patient, dig in,” perhaps you might expect the presenter of archaeology programme Time Team to advise. Or maybe, “Completely rewrite the form book,” as his character Baldrick tried to do with Dr Johnson’s dictionary in Blackadder the Third.

But no. 

In his earlier life Robinson was also the man who, as part of the Who Dares Wins alternative comedy team, was the central figure in their avant-garde Emperor’s New Clothes sketch and it is from there he appears to draw his inspiration.

Bristol City, he feels, should take to the big stage in all their glory and with no fear at all of any embarrassment.

“If we play with the tenacity we have and we are confident enough in our skills to move the ball across the pitch as we have been doing recently, there is every chance we could win – every chance,” insisted Robinson.

“The atmosphere will be huge. This is our biggest match for a decade. The way we get behind our team will be 100 per cent.”

Initially a Spurs fan, Robinson lost his contact lens to Jimmy Greaves when he accidently swallowed it with excitement while trying to clean it in his mouth just as the legend hit the back of the net.

Then he lost his composure to Gordon Banks, when he was allowed to travel with the Stoke team after marrying the daughter of the club chairman and any feigned nonchalance soon went out of the bus window.

However, his heart undoubtedly went to the Robins – a near five-decade love affair that started when he took the woman who would be the mother of his children to a game against Blackpool at Ashton Gate on their very first date.

“As a bloke, that is where all my thwarted ambitions, anger, frustration, desire to show intense emotions which we find so difficult to do will be channelled,” he said. “The things we cannot do in our real lives take us over for 90 minutes every Saturday.

“I was always rubbish as a player. But what is so great is I can be as good to the cause as any player because I support them so well!

“I have conversations with some of them on Twitter, and indeed the manager Lee Johnson. Aden Flint, Callum O’Dowda, Joe Bryan. We go on Twitter and share things.”

Robinson, 71, needs little encouragement to discuss his passion with anybody. A cold-call email raising the possibility of an interview to his listed agent, and within an hour his unmistakeably optimistic voice was gabbling down the phone from his holiday home in Spain.

“You won’t want to use any of this of course,” he said, pausing for breath after a long-winded eulogy to Seventies hero Paul Cheesley – “he’d have been our Sergio Aguero if he hadn’t got injured” – with honourable mentions for Geoff Merrick, Gerry Sweeney and Jimmy Mann.

City last left the top flight in 1980 but after a relegation battle last season that was “dazzling”, according to Robinson, they are now pushing for promotion to the Premier League on top of their cup exploits.

“Whatever happens in this game, we can go back to Old Trafford next season in the Premier League and tonk them good and proper,” Robinson firmly believes.

Baldrick’s dream finally answered: a giant turnip for the books.