The Day I Met Pele

With the World Cup upon us I was reflecting on a day in 1966 that not only seems like I lived in a completely different world back then, but was in reality a completely different world. I was out cycling on a lovely early summer's day and was in a small Scottish seaside town called Troon, famous for its golf courses, one of which frequently hosts the British Open Golf Tournament. It was a Sunday. Troon boasts a small non-league football club named Troon Juniors who play in a small ground that would probably struggle to hold more than a couple of thousand people. However, as I was passing Troon's football park I heard music and saw some activity which drew my attention because it was the close season. My curiosity made me cycle up to the park, which is called Portland Park, and I stopped in disbelief because the first thing I saw standing at the front gate was Pele, the greatest footballer ever, and at that time probably the most famous man on the planet. My first reaction was that my eyes were deceiving me but I approached the main gate and saw that it was indeed Pele. I was fortunate enough to shake his hand and welcome him, although I am sure he did not understand me, but he smiled, shook my hand and said something, which I assume was a greeting. As I entered Portland Park I saw the entire Brazilian national team training, and the source of the music was because the Brazilians really did train to samba music as they had several large ghetto blasters placed around the ground playing music to different groups of players. I watched the Brazilians train for about an hour and during that time Pele remained at the gate and took no part in the training as he was giving interviews and conducting very effective public relations with locals, children and the media. Brazil were in Scotland to play the Scottish national team at Hampden Park the following Wednesday in a warm up game for the World Cup that was being held in England that year, a game I was fortunate to attend, and were staying at one of Troon's famous hotels.

The purpose of this post is that I carried my bike into Portland Park and sat for an hour on the grass watching the most famous football team in the world with the most famous players and not a soul asked me who I was or what I was doing there. I mean, there was I sitting watching Garrincha, Jairzinho, Tostao, Gerson, Zito etc. pure legends, and there was one Scottish bobby in attendance as I recall and he stayed at the gate, presumably watching Pele as well. Can you imagine that? Brazil were the World Cup holders at that time having won the previous two World Cups, and that team was probably, still to this day, the best football team ever. There was, quite literally, no security, and the point I wish to make is that there was no need for any.

So, what has brought us to the situation we are in today when a team like that would have motor cycle escorts, armed guards, where security has become an obsession and unfortunately very necessary? You will not be surprised when I tell you that the one common denominator underpinning the collapse of civilisation and our descent into barbarism is a dominant ideology, a twisted, divisive, poisonous, violent and dehumanising ideology - free market neoliberalism. 1966 was BT, before Thatcher. This was an age before the official adoption of greed, class and racist warfare, the cult of the individual and an open and vicious assault on all of our rights. This was before the official launch of the policies that were designed to reduce working people throughout the world to a modern state of slavery and deny them pensions, health care, employment rights etc. etc. this was indeed the end of an era.

In historical terms, our descent into this quasi-dystopian anti-social mess we call British society has been breathtakingly rapid, it is less than fifty years. I was reminded of H.L. Mencken's famous observation that

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” 

That was written in 1920, but it was not a serious prospect until the Presidency of Ronald Reagan and his adoption of the Blessed Margaret's vision of the world that has inevitably led us to the Know Nothing and the descent of American government into madness. Not that British government is any healthier as we are governed by the most feral elite imaginable who are both incompetent and stupid. What do our nations have in common as well as an unbelievably insane political class? An addiction to free market ideology! I remind you, just as surely as neoliberalism has destroyed the economic institutional structures of our respective nations, so it is just as surely destroying the political as well. Imagine the future after the Know Nothing and Brexit? Even HG Wells would have struggled with what we are facing. That is the legacy of the Blessed Margaret and her free market experiment.

I reflect that I now live in a different world to the one I grew up in and now inhabit a world that has shed all norms of decency and rule based conduct. It begins at the top and permeates right down throughout society. It has not happened by accident and today's norms of conduct and human behaviour, particularly in the political and public spheres, have been quite deliberately debased and corrupted. I fear today that if I met Pele and tried to shake his hand I may well be arrested for terrorism. Thank you very much Margaret, you did indeed shape society as a reflection of your own character. You have been warned

Your Servant

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