Spliff an’ Kick an’ Ting

Name a famous soccer player who regularly used drugs when he played but was never drug tested.
 
Bob Marley.
 
The documentary “Marley” provides some first-hand accounts from those close to Marley as to the importance to him of the game. Bob Marley’s manager and former professional footballer, Allan “Skill” Cole, started a routine with Marley that involved running and soccer training every morning.
 
In the movie he tells us, “It became an integral part of our lifestyle.”
 
Marley would run on the beach, then up to the waterfall at Cane River Falls. There he would smoke a spliff, and get a back, shoulder, and neck massage from the waterfall. Then back to “the stadium” a 40-yard asphalt rectangle where he played five-a-side scrimmage soccer with breeze blocks for goalposts.
 
Neville Garrick, artistic director for the Wailers: “In everything that Bob does, very competitive. Everything he really gave it the hundred and ten percent.”
 
Allan “Skill” Cole: “He had a passion. Everything I did with a ball he would try to do. “
 
Close friend, Dessi Smith: “He just didn’t play for the fun of it. It was part of the process, y’know. Before he writes a song, burn a spliff. Then you go run so you can lively up yourself and then he’d get more inspired so the lyrics could come out.”
 
Bob Marley: “Tell you the truth, I play everywhere. Anywhere ‘tis possible, y’know.”
 
Many people are surprised to hear Bob Marley was a fanatical soccer player and fan. That might not fit their image of a legendary reggae star: the marihuana smoking, the lazy reggae beats, the dreadlock Rastafarian easy-going attitude, the political activism. But soccer is deeply rooted in the world.
 
Bob Marley: “Football is a whole skill to itself. A whole world. A whole universe to itself. Me love it because you have to be skillful to play it. Freedom. Football is freedom.”
 
Whether on tour, in the recording studio, or chilling with family and friends Marley loved kicking a ball every day. He also loved watching soccer on TV. His favorite team was Santos Futebol Clube and his favorite player was Pele.
 
On a trip to Brazil , in Rio de Janeiro in 1970 he joined in a street soccer game. Along with fellow musicians, people from the record label Ariola, and Brazilian street kids there was also Paulo Cesar, member of the 1970 Brazilian World Cup team. In Brazil it seems everyone plays soccer with everyone else. The Brazilians gave him a number 10 Santos shirt (Pele’s number). While putting the shirt on Bob Marley smiled and declared that, just like Pele, he too could play in any position.
 
In 1977 the reggae superstar injured his foot while playing soccer with some friends. The wound seemed pretty extreme for a simple soccer injury, and when it got worse instead of healing, he decided to see a doctor. A melanoma was diagnosed and amputation of the toe was recommended.
 
But as a devout Rastafarian, Bob Marley believed that amputation was sinful. A Bible verse that Rastafarians hold very important, Leviticus 21:5, says: “They shall not make baldness upon their head … nor make any cuttings in the flesh.”
 
There is an additional tenet of Rastafarianism. The belief is essentially that death is not a certainty, and that truly holy people will gain immortality in their physical bodies. To even acknowledge that death is a possibility is to make certain that it will come soon.
 
By the late summer of 1980, the cancer had metastasized throughout his body, and while jogging through New York’s Central Park, Marley collapsed. His final performance was in September of 1980 in Pittsburgh, a performance that was recorded and released as Bob Marley and the Wailers Live Forever.
 
In 1981, while on his way back home to Jamaica his plane stopped over in Miami, where he died on May 11.
 
RIP – Bob Marley, Rasta reggae soccer star.
 
All quotes are from the documentary film “Marley”, and The Bible.