Spending a few days with the most famous human being on the planet

The year was 1977. The place was London. The VIP was Edson Arantes do Nascimento (better known as Pelé), who was over in London to promote the British publication of his autobiography, My Life and the Beautiful Game . 

I wish I had something scurrilous to pass on – but Pelé was a quiet, relaxed, charming, muscular little man, who seemed utterly and totally comfortable with himself (not surprising really, when you’ve convincingly proved yourself to be the best person in the world at what you do, as the maestro had done seven years earlier during the Mexico World Cup, where he was the undoubted star of the greatest football team I have ever seen). 

 Large man prepares to  attack football legend with cigarette

Of course, being a superstar, he was accompanied during his stay at the Savoy by an enormous retinue of minders, friends,  tarts and hangers-on – well, to be honest, he was actually  accompanied by exactly two people: his trainer and a courtly gentleman in his late fifties or early sixties, known as “The Professor”, who puffed at a pipe and nodded and smiled benignly from time to time (I never quite figured out what his role was, but it was something to do with football). 

There were no weird food requirements, no requests for dubious “entertainment”, no hissy fits – just graciousness, calmness and good humour, particularly towards myself and the PR firm I’d hired to lend our publicity operation a patina of professionalism. Even when we were stuck in a vast traffic jam in a Daimler as big as a whale on the way to Heathrow, and I had to explain it was highly unlikely they’d make their flight, the three of them just shrugged and smiled. (When we got there, of course, there was a small crowd of officials waiting for the Great Man – I got the distinct impression that the plane would still have been there if we’d been an hour late instead of just a few minutes.)

Pelé’s English wasn’t that great, so the conversation didn’t exactly flow. However, there was something about my height and girth which amused him: several times when he was standing next to me, he put an arm around me (well, half-way round) patted my stomach and burst out laughing, simultaneously shaking his head. (I remember a tubby little priest doing the same thing to me in the church of SS Giovanni e Paolo in Venice.) 

The only slightly awkward moment of the visit came during a large press conference we’d convened, when, after I’d introduced Pelé, and he’d said a few words about the book, I asked for questions from the assembled crowd of radio, TV and press reporters. As I pointed at someone or other (Ian Woolridge from the Mail, I seem to recall) a man standing at the back of the room suddenly boomed out, “Whatever happened to Eusebio?”

It was Bill Grundy (yes, the man who had recently conducted a notoriously shambolic and foul-mouthed live TV interview with the Sex Pistols), and he was, inevitably, as pissed a newt. (I can still picture him clearly, drink in hand, mac askew, weaving from side to side, eyes unfocussed.)

There was a pause as Pelé tried to figure out why the hell this apparition was asking him such a bizarrely irrelevant question.

“Usebio!” Grundy barked. “Wa‘appened tim? Eh?”

“I don’t know,” Pelé said. “Fine, I think.”

“Great player, Use..Eh...Bee...Oh!” Grundy boomed.

“Yes,” Pelé agreed, still nonplussed. “Ver’ good player.” 

“Ian Woolridge!” I shouted desperately, signaling a helper to get a microphone to him ASAP, as the crowd laughed and Grundy opened his maw to bellow another irrelevance.  

Woolridge started his question and, distracted, Grundy wandered off in the direction of the temporary bar at the side of the room. 

The only other moment of excitement came at the end of the presser when two presumably South American radio reporters practically shoved their mikes up Pelé’s nose at the same instant, and then began violently elbowing each other until I asked them to calm down, at which point they both started shouting at me in Spanish or Portuguese. Pelé just laughed – used to it, I guess.

As to the contention implicit in the title of this post, the only other contender for the top sporting celebrity spot at that time was Muhamad Ali – but no one in the vast prison that was China would have known the boxer from Adam, but they’d all have heard of Pelé.

As for non-sporting world celebs, I suppose the Pope might have come close to matching Pelé’s celebrity – but this was the year before the election of John Paul II, and, again, there was China to consider, (plus large swathes of the Muslim world.) Queen Elizabeth II might just about have been in with a shout, I suppose - but I doubt it. (We were able to discount the President of the United States, as that grinning twerp Jimmy Carter was the incumbent at the time.)

No, I reckon our burly little Brazilian guest was the clear winner. How wonderful that he turned out to be such a good advert for the human race.