Colin Bell

Roger Edmunds said:
It was definitely an afternoon 3pm kick-off. As it was the depths of winter, the floodlights were turned on and he replaced Paul Power at half-time with the score at 0-0. We won 4-0 and had a new supersub.
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Tueart 3 Kidd 1 (kicked in off the goal line from a Tueart shot if I remember correctly) that day was almost as good as beating QPR recently.
 
Roger Edmunds said:
It was definitely an afternoon 3pm kick-off. As it was the depths of winter, the floodlights were turned on and he replaced Paul Power at half-time with the score at 0-0. We won 4-0 and had a new supersub.
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In those days pre - Sky, matches were mainly at 3:00 pm, unless designated night matches. The second half should have started at around 4pm, but was slightly delayed due to the crowd's reaction to Colin's appearance.
Remember, it was 26th December, and it would have been dark at that time, being just after the shortest day.
 
A couple of years old now but here’s something I posted in 2017:

DRINK A DRINK FOR COLIN THE KING THIS BOXING DAY............................Sometimes an anniversary slips by without so much as a nod or a wink, if you are a married man and you have forgotten your wife's special day, you'll know what I mean.

But I doubt if any City supporters privileged to be witnesses will ever forget one football anniversary, which will be 40 years this December, that took place at Maine Road on Boxing Day, December 26th 1977, when City played Newcastle United.

For two frustrating years Colin Bell had refused to bow down to the fact that he was out of the game for life. Bell had hardly played a senior match since he critically damaged his knee playing against Man.Utd on a November night in 1975. The pain and torment of his long and lonely battle for fitness would have put paid to lesser determined characters. Bell's demanding and tedious fight for fitness continued throughout two summers when most players were enjoying there holidays.
But on that Boxing Day 1977 his courage and dedication were rewarded, When City's physio Roy Bailey displayed the number 6 card to call off the injured Paul Power, on trotted City sub, Colin Bell, to a deafening roar from the 45,811 spectators. City were level pegging with Newcastle at 0-0 when, all of a sudden the Maine Road atmosphere was transformed by the appearance of the long-absent idol of all true blue fans at the time, a spontaneous demonstration of warmth and effection for a great player who had fired the imagination, there has rarely been anything quite so stirring as the ovation accorded to Bell that afternoon. Even the normally unemotional old hands in the press box got that pulse-tingling feeling of magic in the air - The King Was Back.

Everyone loves a fighter and it seemed that every supporter at the game was willing Bell to do well. His presence proved to be an inspiration to his team-mates and City coasted to a 4-0 victory. Bell went on to play 20 full games that season, 16 in the league, 2 FA Cup and 2 League Cup games. The following season he had a recurrence of the injury and only played 16 senior games plus one as a sub. Four appearances in his last season for City were in the UEFA Cup, he came on as sub against Dutch side FC Twente and scored in a 3-2 win at Maine Road to help City into the next round on a 4-3 aggregate. He played twice against Standard Liege in the next round, and again, against AC Milan.

On August 21st 1979, he reluctantly announced his retirement from the game after a stern warning that he could be crippled for life if he continued. Whenever football fans in general, and City fans in particular talk about great names who have graced the famous England and City shirt's, Colin Bell's name is spoken with reverence. The final fitting farewell for Bell came on Tuesday September 11th 1979, just three weeks after he had made his retirement known. A combined Manchester team met a similar eleven from merseyside in his testimonial match at Maine Road. On a dismal night, 23,936 admirers turned up to pay tribute to a player whose wide-ranging talent had played a big part in City's successful trophy triumphs of the 60's & 70's.

For the record Bell signed for City from Bury in March 1966 for £45,000, then a record fee for a teenager. Within 48 hours he had made a goalscoring debut in a 2-1 win at Derby County as City stormed towards the Second Division Championship. Bell was capped 48 times for England and with City he won First and Second Divsion championship medals, FA Cup and League Cup winners medals and European Cup Winners' Cup medal. He made 393 League appearances and scored 119 League goals.

Legend
 
Colin_Bell said:
But on that Boxing Day 1977 his courage and dedication were rewarded, When City's physio Roy Bailey displayed the number 6 card to call off the injured Paul Power, on trotted City sub, Colin Bell, to a deafening roar from the 45,811 spectators.
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I don't think this is right, is it? Bell came on at half time, and for half time subs in those days, they checked the studs before the teams came out and the sub just ran out with the rest of the team. Unlike when a sub came on during play, at half time there was no card displayed by the physio. Commentators used to have to try to look round the teams as they lined up for kick off to spot whether there were any changes.

My memory is that, as the team came out at the start of the second half, a roar went up in the middle of the Kippax because they could see him in the tunnel before he emerged onto the pitch. And that spread right round the ground as more and more people realised he was coming on. It turned into a huge, rapturous ovation from literally everyone there (I didn't see anyone round me not joining in). To be fair, the Geordies applauded him as well. It went on for several minutes, but even when it subsided the atmosphere for the whole second half was incredibly charged and, as you say, the team responded. As I recall, we looked like scoring every time we attacked.

Colin_Bell said:
Bell went on to play 20 full games that [1977/78] season, 16 in the league, 2 FA Cup and 2 League Cup games. The following season he had a recurrence of the injury and only played 16 senior games plus one as a sub.
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Not enough is made IMO of how well he actually played in that second half of 1977/78. I'm not busy at work this morning so have compiled the stats that show the impact he had. As we went into the Newcastle game, we'd already suffered seven league defeats that season, having played less than half the fixtures. From Boxing Day onwards, we lost three. Before Boxing Day, we were averaging 1.1 points per game, which equates to 46 points over a 42-game season with 2 points for a win - a tally that would typically see you finish maybe 8th to 10th in those days. From Boxing Day onwards, even though the in-form Dennis Tueart left the club in January, we averaged 1.36 per game, which equates to 57 points, a tally that would be competitive for the title nearly every season (though not that one, given the phenomenal form of Brian Clough's Forest, who finished on 64 points).

Sure, Bell was nowhere near to being the same player as he was pre-injury. But nonetheless, he came into the side and gave us a terrific balance and I put our improvement in the second half of the campaign down to that. We ended up with a first eleven playing in a 4-3-3 formation as follows: Corrigan; Clements, Watson, Booth, Donachie; Owen, Bell, Hartford; Channon, Kidd, Barnes. He had reduced mobility (and I know it upset many Blues to see him like that), but, generally sitting fairly deep, he had fantastic positional sense, anticipation and passing ability that gave a different dimension to our play. We looked a very decent side.

It was really a great shame that his knee deteriorated from even the state it was in when he returned. If he'd been able to maintain that level of the first few months of 1978 for another couple of seasons, that would have been a huge benefit to us.
 
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Had the pleasure of seeing him on the pitch in the flesh from late in the 70/71 until he could no longer perform.

Certainly the best player I've seen play for us until modern times, maybe still the best. It's difficult to transpose conditions on the pitch, health/technology/science off it but I'm sure he'd have still been a top player now.
 
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