Bell, Lee and Summerbee statue | Unveiled (pg19)

Gary James said:
Members of Colin's family were at Francis' funeral and several members of all three families were sat together chatting etc. yesterday.
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This is wonderful news Gary.
My prize possession is a signed Bell, Lee & Summerbee shirt, which my mucka got me for my 50th (nearly 15 years ago now for Christ's sake!). It was all down to Buzzer, who my mucka was friendly with at the time. He signed it, but knowing that Colin would probably have not signed it if Franny had already, got Colin to sign it. However, he told Colin who it was for (I have had the incredible honor of meeting Colin on a few occasions and actually presented me with a match ball in the past!) and that he was going to get Franny to also sign it afterwards (full disclosure and all that). After a few moments hesitation King Colin duly signed it and Buzzer then got Franny to sign it.
I feel so humble and yet so proud, of the effort my mucka went to and then also Buzzer to go out of his way to coordinate the whole thing and also being upfront with Colin.
Like i said, this is my most prized possession, but, it still saddens me, that it had to be done in this way, as these 3 complete legends of our club, should have been lifetime friends for what they achieved and did for goads own club!
RIP Colin and Francis - thank you so very much for some incredible memories.............
 
Gary James said:
Agreed. The club spent a considerable amount of time sourcing photos, videos etc. from Franny's arrival on 9 Oct 1967 until the ECWC success in 1970. That's the period they were trying to capture and highlight. They asked me to help with some of that stuff and I supplied what I could too. There were several different sculptors asked to put their proposals forward and some of these had focused on a chubby Franny with different hair etc. from his final playing days and not the Franny who won those trophies. They were not appropriate at all in capturing that era.

Once the sculptor was selected even more effort was placed on getting the 3 players right and Franny was consulted and involved. I don't want to misquote him or anything but from what I heard he was very happy with the way he looked in the sculpture. That's good enough for me - it's a statue of him after all. As with all statues they are based on specific moments, images and video clips, and with football being a game that's visual and full of movement the way a player appears from one moment in a game to the next can vary.

I'm sure the full video the club are releasing will show the lengths taken to get this right. So many clubs take a standard football pose when creating stuff like this and that's dull. This sculpture is different and shows the players moving as they did in games. We all have fixed views of players and sometimes our memories are tainted by later events and so, as with so much else, it's important to go back to the period and do as much research as possible to ensure the past is being portrayed properly and not what any one of us thinks.

This statue is a major positive for our club. Together with the others they have cost an incredible amount in money, time and effort. The club didn't need to do this but it wanted to. It wanted to ensure our past is remembered. So many say we have no history but this major work of art helps others understand and recognise our history. We should all be proud of what these players achieved and be delighted that our current owner is actually doing something about remembering this era when so many claimed it was only the present the owner and senior management were interested in.
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Brilliant gesture by the club and should be appreciated by all!
Sadly, the word 'entitled' springs to mind reading SOME of these extremely disappointing comments.
 
My view of the light show last night (follow the link):

gjfootballarchive.com

Bell, Lee & Summerbee Statue Light Show

Here’s my film of the Bell, Lee & Summerbee light show from before last night’s Manchester City v Leipzig at the Etihad. I normally sit behind the goal but I was in the Colin Bell S…
gjfootballarchive.com gjfootballarchive.com

Did anyone capture the Boys In Blue video on the screens? It was great to see the North West Film Archive footage of the day it was recorded in March 1972 used alongside the song itself.
 
Gary James said:
My view of the light show last night (follow the link):

gjfootballarchive.com

Bell, Lee & Summerbee Statue Light Show

Here’s my film of the Bell, Lee & Summerbee light show from before last night’s Manchester City v Leipzig at the Etihad. I normally sit behind the goal but I was in the Colin Bell S…
gjfootballarchive.com gjfootballarchive.com

Did anyone capture the Boys In Blue video on the screens? It was great to see the North West Film Archive footage of the day it was recorded in March 1972 used alongside the song itself.
Click to expand...
saw the words on screen .....was that it? I don't record stuff but I bet someone has.
 
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