MANAGING
Born Allan Aloysius Cole in Woodford Park, Jamaica, he was the only child of Allan Senior, a civil servant. His mother was a dressmaker.
They were a prosperous, middle-class family. Allan went to Kingston College, one of Jamaica’s top schools.
Allan showed a lot of talent as a footballer. The other children nicknamed him ‘Skill’, a tag that stayed with him throughout his life.
He regarded his father as the biggest influence on him, telling Allan he had to be two-footed if he was to succeed in the game. He said of his father, “He was a sports-minded man, my greatest motivator.”
It was on a football field that Allan met Bob Marley. They shared a love of both sport and music, and became lifelong friends. They were also running partners whenever possible.
Allan played for one of the local football teams, Vere Technical.
Aged just fifteen, Allan was called up to the international squad by the national coach. Major Ken Barnes.
Ken was the father of the future Liverpool and England international, John Barnes.
Allan played three times for the national team, all in World cup qualifying games. Very quickly, he was labelled ‘Jamaica’s most celebrated player’.
The reason he did not win any more caps was he was transferred to the USA, playing for the Atlanta Chiefs.
After his spell in the States was over, Allan returned briefly to Jamaica, where he joined another local team. During this period, Bob Marley had put together a band with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer.
They called themselves Bob Marley and the Wailers. Allan became their manager.
Allan got them a contract with Tuff Gong Records. Their first single was called, ‘Trench Town Rock’. Allan promoted it endlessly and it went to number one in the charts.
The Wailers earned more money than they ever had before.
Allan also managed their backing singers, The I-Threes. Marley would marry one of them, Rita, and another one, Judy Moffatt, became Allan’s long-term partner. They had three children.
Allan was forced to step down from managing the band, as he was transferred to Nautico, a team based in Recife, Brazil.
However, he was infuriated when the Wailer’s second single, ‘Rebel Music (Three O’Clock Roadblock)’ failed to chart because the band’s new management refused to promote it.
On a brief visit home, Allan went to various radio stations, armed with a baseball bat, demanding the song was played. It was.
Allan helped Nautico to promotion to the top division for the first time in thirteen years.
At the time, Brazil were world champions (with what many people consider the greatest football team of all time).
Allan played against many of that side including legends, Pele, Gerson, Tostao and Jairzinho. “Going to Brazil and playing in that time was amazing. Yuh talking ‘bout the most skillful players in the world.”
Allan’s second season in Brazil was not a success. He was sacked by Nautico for refusing to cut his dreadlocks.
Returning to Jamaica, he joined the local Santos FC, becoming their star player as they dominated the league for a number of years, including winning three successive league titles.
In 1975, the New York Cosmos toured the West Indies and played Santos at the National Stadium. Pele played for the American side. (Santos were the chosen opponents, not only because they were the current champions but because Pele had previously played for a Brazilian team also called Santos.)
Allan played in this match, and he produced a beautiful pass that put Errol Reid in to score the only goal of the game. The match has gone down in local folk lore.
Allan never managed the Wailers again (except as a Road Manager – organising their tours) but always remained very close to the heart of the band, having great influence.
In 1976, they released their most successful LP, ‘Rastaman Vibration’. Allan is credited as co-writer of the track ‘War’, but in later years this was contested as his part of the song was taken from a speech by Haile Selassi. Allan just gave it to Bob Marley.
Another track, ‘Cry to Me’, had been released on a different label. Marley wanted it on this LP, but the original label refused to let them. Allan suggested The Wailers re-record it in a different version.
Away from the football and music scene, Allan was far from an angel. Obsessed with horse racing, he was a regular at the Caymanus Racterack.
He was accused of being involved in a scheme to fix races by drugging horses. The plot went wrong when a horse that had been drugged failed to finish in the position it was supposed to. Allan’s co-conspirators lost a lot of money. He said they were, “Bad men.”
Allan was forced to pay them back but he didn’t have any money. He went begging to Bob Marley, who at one point was loaning him $2,000 a day.
Shortly afterwards, Marley was shot and wounded, in an assassination attempt on Hope Road in Kingston. Police claimed it was for political reasons, but many people believed it was because of his links to Allan Cole.
Allan fled to Ethiopia, fearing for his life. There, he managed the national football team.
He still met up with Bob Marley whenever he was on tour. He played five-a-side football with his friend in both Paris and London.
Allan accompanied Marley on what turned out to be his final tour, between May and September 1980.
On 20th September, Bob and Allan were running in Central Park, New York, when the singer collapsed in Allan’s arms. The following day he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Eight months later, Bob Marley died, aged just thirty-six. Allan said of him, “A great, great friend. A confidant.”
Shortly afterwards, Allan returned to Jamaica. There, he coached Port Morant United.
In the 1990s, Allan was charged with supplying spliffs of cannabis to his jockeys at the racetrack.
Allan fell out with the Jamaican football authorities and was excluded from the game. It left him very bitter as he felt he should have been the national team manager.
In 2002, Allan was arrested for the possession of 147 kilograms of cannabis. He was sentenced to eighteen months in prison with a large fine. Somehow, he managed to talk himself out of going to jail.
In later years, Allan received a plaque from the President of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, honoring his contribution to Jamaican football.
Allan also split with his long-term partner, reggae singer, Judy Mowatt, and married Sharron.
Allan’s son, Ali, pre-deceased him, as did a grandson who was killed in a car crash.
Allan was asked to work on a biopic about his friend, Bob Marley. He said there were many myths about the singer but only he knew him well enough for the film to be accurate.
When the film was released (called ‘One Love’), there was no mention of Allan in it. “If you’re going to do a story you must be as truthful as you can.”
Instead, Allan began to write a book about his relationship with Bob Marley. He never finished it.
After a short illness, Allan died in hospital. The Leader of the Opposition, Mark Golding, said, “I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Allan ‘Skill’ Cole, a Jamaican legend who many consider to be our greatest ever footballer, with silky elegant passing skills and ball control that was second to none”.
Allan outlived the other two members of the Wailers. Peter Tosh was murdered in 1987 and Bunny Wailer died in 2021.
Allan remains the youngest person ever to play for the Jamaican national football team.
RIP – Reggae’s International Player
