BBC (America) world news just gave their entire half hour to Pele, including an interview with Dennis Tueart talking about how he took over from him at NY Cosmos (and on his 70th birthday getting a personal video message from Pele himself.) And then some journo who got to know Pele in 1966 while the Brazil team was staying at a "less than 5 star hotel in Lytham" as he put it.
It brought back a memory of seeing a young Brazil fan standing by the side of the East Lancs Road trying to hitch a ride to L'pool for one of their W.C. games at Goodison that year. Almost the only words we could find together were "Pele" and "Garrincha" but the lad was dead excited at the thought of seeing his countrymen play. So when a car stopped to give him a lift he ran to where it had stopped and jumped in, leaving his bag by the side of the road as they sped off. Somewhere around St. Helens he might have noticed he'd gone without it but when it was still there that night we turned it in to the Lancs constabulary who found it was full of bright yellow t-shirts and Brazilian footie magazines. Often wondered what became of the lad, hope he at least got in to see Pele in action.
