My mum used to use this word to describe something as bad or nasty, and I have never heard anyone else use it till Chesney on Corrie the other night, he said he had always been bobbins at something or other, meaning not good at it. I have just looked it up and found out it is Manchester rhyming slang (didn't know they had such a thing up there) for bobbins of cotton (rotten).
my brother and his family use it, they live in rochdale. We are not that far away, in blackpool, but we don't say it.
It is usually shortened:
'I really tried but i was bob'