ALAN MULLERY: I was so proud to get Pele’s jersey until it was STOLEN – but Brazil’s yellow shirt will always remind of me their iconic 1970 World Cup triumph
- Alan Mullery received Pele’s shirt in 1969, before it was stolen
- Pele inspired Brazil to their World Cup title in Mexico a year later
- Ben White will regret rejecting England if they go on to win the European Championship It all starts podcast
Brazil shirts have always been yellow and green. The shorts have always been blue. Why would you change that unless you had no choice? I can not understand.
Is it about the money? Ah, because I’m afraid that when money comes into play, it will all make sense.
Those colors represent Brazil and no one else. You can’t say that about many football shirts.
I wouldn’t want to see them play in other colors; that would take away from the occasion.
The yellow shirts will always remind me of Pele and those great teams over the years. It will be the same for millions, perhaps billions, of others if we go back to 1970, when that brilliant Brazilian team lifted the trophy as the World Cup was broadcast in color for the first time.
Brazil is always associated with their yellow shirt and blue shorts
The kit was made iconic by the legendary Pele during the 1958, 1966 and 1970 World Cups
Mullery had received a signed shirt from Pele a year earlier, but it had been stolen
My memories of the Brazilians go back to the World Cup in Sweden in 1958. Pele was seventeen 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 stages.
In 1970 they were in a different league. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I don’t think we can compare this team to the past. We had that famous battle in Guadalajara.
Gordon Banks’ great save. Pele swapped his shirt with Bobby Moore after that match, and that photo has gone down in history.
A year earlier we had gone to South America and played a friendly against Brazil at the Maracana in Rio. We lost 2-1 with 135,000 people in the stadium.
I got Pele’s shirt that day. About three years later we moved and I never saw the shirt again. We always wondered if the people who packed the house for us had stolen it.
Pele inspired Brazil to their World Cup victory in 1970, when Brazil defeated Italy 4–1 in the final
Brazil defeated defending champions England in the quarter-finals
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 bought me another Brazil shirt and signed it “To Alan, Pele”. I framed that shirt and it hangs in Mullery’s restaurant at the Amex Stadium in Brighton.
Every time I go there to see a match, I look at it and think that there is no such shirt left anywhere in the world. And I think of Pele. Great memories of a great player.