In 1973 he found himself crammed into Home Park in Plymouth eagerly waiting to see some of the best Brazilian footballers of all time. The great Pele and the magnificent Carlos Alberto were part of a Santos team considered the best in the world and they were about to play a Plymouth side in the Third Division.
Santos had been playing games away from their native Brazil since the late fifty's, and with a squad containing World Cup winners and the world famous Pele the clubs directors saw money making potential that other teams could only dream of.
The game was not without its controversy. Before the Plymouth game Santos had played Fulham at Craven Cottage in front of 11,000 fans agreeing to half of the gate receipts as a fee. They were left wishing they had sorted the same deal with Plymouth as 37,639 turned up and having already agreed to a fee of £2,500 the Santos top brass refused to let the game go ahead unless Argyle doubled the original agreed fee.
Pele made an agreement with his marker John Hore to go easy on him with the tackles as Argyle were matching the silky skilled Brazilians with good old fashioned hard tackling.
The biggest shock of all was that Plymouth ran out eventual winners 3-2! They even found themselves leading 3-0 at one point before a spirited come back from Santos which included a Pele penalty.
Its very unlikely that Plymouth would be able to attract some of the worlds biggest teams to appear in a friendly in this day and age. But one magical evening in March 1973 the city of Plymouth was graced with some of the finest footballers the world has ever seen.