I was so proud to get Pele’s jersey… then it was stolen!
BRAZIL shirts have always been yellow and green. The shorts have always been blue. Why would you change that unless you had no option? I can’t understand it. Is it about the money? Ah, because I’m afraid when money comes into the equation, it all starts making sense. Those colours represent Brazil and nobody else. You can’t say that about many football shirts. I wouldn’t want to see them playing in any other colours — it would take something away from the occasion. The yellow shirts will always remind me of Pele and those marvellous teams over the years. It will be the same for millions, maybe billions of others going back to 1970, when that brilliant Brazil side lifted the trophy the first time the World Cup was broadcast in colour. My memories of the Brazilians go back to the World Cup in Sweden, in 1958. Pele was 17 and his two goals in the final against the hosts helped Brazil win the tournament for the first time. They won it again in 1962 and came to England in 1966 as champions and the team to beat, but went out in the group stage. In 1970, they were in a different class. I don’t think that’s the case any more. I don’t think we can compare this team to the past. We had that famous battle in Guadalajara. The great save by Gordon Banks. Pele swapped his shirt with Bobby Moore after that game, and that photo has gone down in history.
One year before, we had gone to South America and played Brazil in a friendly at the Maracana in Rio. We lost 2-1 with 135,000 inside the stadium. I got Pele’s shirt that day. About three years later, we moved house and I never saw the shirt again. We always wondered if the people packing up the house for us had nicked it. Then, about 25 years later, I was at a dinner with Geoff Shreeves, who worked at Sky Sports, and Pele was there. We told him the story and he got another Brazil shirt for me and signed it, “To Alan, Pele”. I have that shirt framed and it is hanging in the Mullery’s restaurant at Brighton’s Amex Stadium. Every time I go there to see a game, I look at it and think there is not another shirt like that anywhere in the world. And I think of Pele. Great memories of a great player.