Bob Marley Was A Fantastic Footballer To Have Watched

There are hundreds of thousands of photos of Bob Marley available out in the world. Most show him onstage, singing with passionate intensity. Some show him relaxing, with the camera fixed on his natural aura. But even a casual search of Marley’s image will bring you face-to-face with one of Marley’s other major loves in his life: football.

Photos of Marley dribbling, passing, shooting, and even nutmegging are plentiful. Whether he’s at his own home, on the road, or even in the backstage area of a concert, Marley could often be seen with a football more than he could be seen with a guitar. It was a rite of passage for anyone in his circle to play a keepie-uppie game with him and his band. As Marley famously told an outsider journalist who wanted to get to know the real person behind his mythical persona: “If you want to get to know me, you will have to play football against me and the Wailers.”

“Watching him play football was magical,” friend and personal photographer Dennis Morris said. “I never really took photos of him while he played football because I really just wanted to watch him play. Because it was his joy, and it was the only time he had to relax, so that was really when I would put the camera down.”

Marley’s identity was closely intertwined with association football: he received his nickname “Tuff Gong” from his aggressive play on the pitch and even originally envisioned football being his way of getting out of the dilapidated area of Trench Town, Jamaica where he grew up in. Another passion – music – eventually did that for him, but his love of football continued to be a pervasive part of his everyday life.

“He was so focused,” fellow musician Levi Roots remembered about Marley’s skills. “With the ball at his feet, running at you and his main aim is to get past you, then to shoot. He was a master. Of both of his passions.”

“I love music before I love football. If I love football first it maybe can be dangerous,” Marley claimed in 1980. “I love music and then football after. Playing football and singing is dangerous because football gets very violent. I sing about peace, love, and all of that stuff, and something might happen y’know. If a man tackles you hard it brings feelings of war.”

Still, Marley found plenty of time to devote to the beautiful game. It became both a release and a test for Marley, who stayed in shape, partially thanks to his long sessions on the pitch. When outsiders would come into Marley’s orbit, football became a way to either break the ice or weed out the undesirables.

“Bob loved football — or soccer, as the world calls it,” close friend Neville Garrick said in 2017. “Loved it to the point that if he was as good as Allan ‘Skill’ Cole, his former tour manager who I still consider Jamaica’s best footballer, he probably would have pursued it over music. It was understandable why Bob emulated Skill Cole; back then, Skill would curve the ball, nutmeg and ‘salad’ defenders on a regular basis — nobody had ever seen that.”

Some English promoters would be quick to accept a game against Marley, believing that their familiarity with the game was better than his, only to be trounced. “Trying to get the ball off him… was just hopeless,” Trevor Wyatt, an Island Records UK distributor, remembered on Marley’s play. “Because Bob was the person he was, the ball always came to him. He was the midfield general if you like, and they called him skipper. They were so good, it was like playing Brazil.”

Others knew better: Marley gained a reputation for chippy play and wasn’t afraid to make anyone look foolish. “Even though Bob wasn’t a big, strong man, he was very aggressive,” Garrick claimed. “When he tackled, he tackled hard. When he kicked and tried to score, he kicked hard. We lost plenty of balls to Bob’s powerful foot.”

Wyatt’s comparison to the Brazilian national team turned out to be prophetic as Bob Marley and the Wailers eventually made it to the country in 1980. The band went off to Brazilian musician Chico Buarque’s personal pitch in Rio de Janeiro for a pickup game that featured professional footballer  Paulo César Caju. Unfortunately, Marley’s health caused him to play poorly.

Three years prior, Marley had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumour under his toe. The pain from the cancerous tumour began to affect his football abilities, although Marley continued to play and remain active despite the diagnosis. Marley’s unwillingness to have the toe amputated was often tied to his religious beliefs, but it’s also somewhat likely that Marley didn’t want to give up playing football. The cancer eventually spread throughout his body, taking his life in 1981. Up to the very end, Marley continued to play as much football as he possibly could.