Re: Belly’s Newcastle comeback. 73/74 was when my Dad started taking me to watch City (a game here, a game there) but I can’t, hand on heart, recall individual performances involving the King. And then of course he was injured. But that comeback game you could feel it, the buzz of anticipation. I remember looking across at the Kippax (from Platt Lane) to see if there was any clue to the growing rumour Belly was coming on and it was like looking at a cosmic singularity, thousands of people inwardly converging into a corridor of view to better see the tunnel and what was going on over there… Then the Kippax went supernova and out of the blinding explosion stepped Colin Bell.
I turned to say something to my Dad and he was crying. I turned away sharpish so he didn’t see me looking. I’d never seen Dad in tears before. Then I noticed other fans crying but it was a happy cry and I realised how much Colin meant to Dad’s generation of supporters and this football club.
I asked him about it years later and he said it was the noise that greeted Belly’s entrance. It just got to him, that swelling crescendo of joy and triumph. But there was sadness too, he said, when he saw Colin wasn’t running as freely, knew it was the end of an era. It might have been, but not that day; the King’s presence swept through the team and us. Once again, we were on the brink of greatness… erm… Took a bit longer than ‘brink’ but we got there, Col!
www.thetimes.co.uk
