Retirement. Colin Bell played his last season and quit the game at 34.
During his last year, he played just 5 games for NASL team San Jose Earthquakes. Even today his retirement is lamented as premature, but effectively Colin Bell was out of big football since 1975 – his career was cut short by heavy knee injury, from which he never recovered and by 1980 even easy NASL football was way too much. By this time Bell was rarely mentioned and his retirement went unnoticed.
Bad luck for arguably the greatest player Manchester City ever had. Colin Bell, born in 1946, started with Bury in 1963 and stayed with the small club until 1966, appearing in 82 games and scoring 25 goals. Manchester City signed him them and quickly he became a big star – and club legend. Between 1966 and 1979 he played 394 matches for City and scored 117 goals.
In England, Bell is considered the best box-to-box player of his day – a midfielder, roaming the whole field, which in British football was called ‘central halfback’. That is, bell was considered more defensive midfielder than constructive or attacking one, and that was why his scoring ability was thought amazing. His skills were not missed by the English national team coaches – Bell played regularly for England between 1968 and 1975 – 48 matches in which he scored 9 goals.
A key player of the national team, he played at the 1970 World Cup: here Franz Beckenbauer tries to catch him in Mexico. Unfortunately, he played at the time when England missed the big changes in football, especially after 1972, but whether Bell was the man to keep England afloat or not is academic – everything stopped in 1975, when he was injured. After that, he never came close to his earlier form and may be even stayed active too stubbornly too long: he slipped out of sight and his last effort to come back by going to USA did not work – he was unable to play and finally had to give up. A sad end of wonderful player, but Colin Bell is remembered fondly by those lucky to see him play before 1975.