Sheffield United vs Tottenham Hotspur

36 UTB
▲ The great man meets the media as part of his visit
without the roof, its packed. The crowd in
total was given as 37,000 and just a few
days later, a home game against Watford
saw roughly half that number through the
turnstiles, such was the pull of seeing the
legend in action.
Tommy Craig, a player I had an irrational
liking for as a kid (and Blade) famously
spent the last 10 minutes of the match
following Pele around to get his shirt, and
fair play to him, so would anyone! February
23rd that year in Sheffield is the stuff of
local legend, that’s for sure.
I must say that one of my fondest
memories out of many over my years here
was playing a part in his visit 35 years later
to celebrate the 125th Birthday of Sheffield
FC.
Even now, it seems a surreal event to say
the least. Our then owner’s relationship
with the chair of Sao Paulo and his business
connections brought forward the chance
to have football’s greatest ambassador
here as the star guest that would culminate
with a special friendly at Bramall Lane
against Inter Milan with Pele as the guest
of honour for the match. Even knowing it
was happening, and the lead up to the visit,
didn’t really prepare you for what was going
to happen, and when he landed at our
famous home the pace started and never
slowed for the time that he was here.
Senior staff were called together outside
to welcome him out on to the pitch in
the midst of the press frenzy that was in
progress, and all were introduced and their
hands warmly shook by the man himself.
I saw loads of pictures over the days after
his passing of TC with him out on the pitch
with the customary Blades scarf around his
neck and the ball balanced between their
heads. You know what? Must have been a
hell of a kick for Tony as Pele knew exactly
who he was without any prompting at all.
As great a player as TC was for us, still
knowing that the greatest knew your name
is something that you could never get tired
of telling, could you?
Other Blades greats such as Deano,
Tony Agana, Mick Jones, Colin Colindridge,
Badge and Ted were assembled in the
boardroom for a full on red and white
welcome and, once again, there were
plenty of photographs to mark the event.
Being Sheffield United FC, we had a
host of events to mark his visit and also,
I suspect, to try and claw back a little bit of
whatever it took to get him over here.
We had:
— An Evening with Pele
— An Afternoon with Pele
— An Audience with Pele
— Table Tennis with Pele
— Stamp Collecting with Pele
A couple of them may be a bit of a lie, but it
would be fair to say that he was at Bramall
Lane more than me that week. One of my
favourite photos of my kids is the one of
my eldest, Liam, who was in charge of the
mascots back then. He was helping out for
the game and was quite literally scooped
into Legends of the Lane by Kevin McCabe
to be right next to the man himself as he
unveiled the Sheffield FC cabinet in person.
I put together a little book on the week
SHEFFIELD UNITED vs TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR