Allan “Skill” Cole, the Jamaican soccer legend and Bob Marley’s former manager, is recovering in the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, after being admitted there with a stomach-related illness.
His wife, Sharon, said the 73-year-old Cole is in high spirits and recuperating in a private ward.
“He’s doing much better, it’s been a good day. He’s on the mend,” she disclosed on December 13.
The previous day, Dr. Carl Bruce, Medical Chief of Staff at the UHWI, told the Jamaica Observer newspaper that Cole was improving but, “We just need to bring up his blood count.
Bruce added that “He is stable but needs some blood. We just need some young people to come donate some blood for him. Right now he is stable.”
An attacking midfielder, Cole made his debut for Jamaica at 15 years old and played professionally for Nautica in Brazil during the early 1970s. He and Marley shared a passion for soccer and Rastafari, as both were members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
They first met in 1969 and struck up a quick relationship. Cole became manager of The Wailers, which included Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny “Wailer” Livingston. When Marley went solo in 1973, Cole became his manager.
He acted in that capacity for the reggae star’s final tour in 1980, just months before Marley died from cancer in a Miami hospital in May 1981 at age 36.
Cole is credited as the writer of War, from Rastaman Vibration, Marley’s 1976 album.
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