Football coach's nightclub attack

Source: Rochdale Observer

11/12/2007

PROFESSIONAL soccer coach Colin Bell ‘lost his cool’ on a dance-floor and left a man nursing a bloody nose.

Magistrates in Manchester heard that the FC United defender followed Paul Holt around the Manchester's Ritz nightclub before headbutting him in the face.

“It was a moment of madness which he deeply regrets,” his lawyer told the bench.

Bell, who coaches youngsters at Rochdale AFC, escaped a prison sentence and was given the maximum of 300 hours unpaid work for assaulting Mr Holt and causing him bodily harm.

The 24-year-old was also given a community order and ordered to pay £100 compensation to his victim, plus £60 costs.

Passing sentence the court told him: “We hope this has been a salutory lesson and the message is don't get drunk and start trouble with people”.

Prosecutor Norman Wilcock said Bell, of Bury Old Road, Heywood, had tried to goad Mr Holt into a fight.

At one stage he slapped him on the back and when confronted by door staff denied doing anything wrong. Minutes later he poked the victim several times with a rolled up poster and then attacked him.

John Kennerley, defending said Bell had acted ‘completely out of character’ due to the amount of alcohol he had consumed.

The men had been bumping into each other on the dance-floor “but he deeply regrets his behaviour and is full of remorse”, added Mr Kennerley.