By Pelé

1940's 1950's 1960's 1970's

During the periods when my dad was sidelined from football through injury, the family really struggled. Zoca, Maria Lúcia and I were always barefoot and wore only cast-off clothes. The house was small and overcrowded with a leaky roof. With no regular source of income, I remember that on several occasions the only meal my mum had for us was bread with a slice of banana. We never went without food – like many people worse off than us in Brazil – but for my mother it was a life governed by fear, a fear of not being able to provide. And one of the things that I have learned in my 65 years is that fear of life is fear of the worst kind.

It was up to me to help. I was the eldest child, after all, and so I decided to do my bit. I must have been about seven when – thanks to Jorge – I scraped together enough money to assemble some shoe-shining kit, and planned to hang out in the more salubrious corners of Bauru making a mint from shining already-shiny shoes. But my mother was far more democratic and insisted I begin closer to home, getting business from our near neighbours. As half the people on our street wandered around barefoot I remember thinking this was not such a good idea, but Dona Celeste was not the kind of woman you disagreed with, and so I dutifully knocked on all the doors on Rubens Arruda Street asking people if they wanted their shoes shined. They were kind, but I only got one sale, and even then I didn’t know how much to charge. Early lessons in business, which I wasn’t always to heed: find out where the customers are, and know your price.

Nor, I realised, was I very good at the shining itself, and so some practice was required. I polished my father’s football boots and also did my own one pair of shoes – a smart pair my aunt Maria had brought on one of her visits one day, which used to belong to her boss’s son. I only wore them on special occasions and they lasted a while until – perhaps this was the most special occasion of them all – I decided to find out what it was like to kick a football in shoes rather than my usual bare feet, and ruined them.

Eventually I persuaded Dona Celeste that there was no point in trying to get shoe-shine work in our poor neighbourhood, and grudgingly she agreed that I could accompany my father to the Bauru Athletic Club stadium on match days, where at least there would be lots of shoes and Dondinho could keep an eye on me. He was too busy working to bother with that, but the presence of so much potential business for me meant I couldn’t fail, and when we went home that day together I had two cruzeiros in my pocket. After this early success my mother became a little more lenient and allowed me to go and shine shoes at the railway stations in town, too – there was more competition there, as other boys like me had the same idea, but at least I was making a little money.