Pele: The day Bolton Wanderers wanted him as their next manager

Credited with scoring a world record 1,281 goals in a career spanning 21 years, he was the only player to win the World Cup three times, lifting the trophy in 1958, 1962 and 1970.

Famously, Pele was targeted by Bolton Wanderers to take over the vacant manager's job in 1982. Forty years later, we re-examined the story and spoke to the reporters who worked on what was a famous front page in the Bolton Evening News.

George Mulhall drove out of the car park at Burnden with a wide smile on his face, not normally the kind of expression worn by a man who has just lost his job.

It was June 1982 and Wanderers had managed to avoid relegation by the skin of their teeth thanks to Luton Town’s victory against Cardiff City on the last day of the season.

Mulhall had been assistant to Ian Greaves between 1974 and 1978 but was tempted back by former Bolton chief executive Brian Turnbull to be Stan Anderson’s right-hand-man, eventually stepping up to the main job for a solitary and rather disappointing single season.

He knew he had been treading a fine line, having clashed with chairman Terry Edge on several occasions – not least the decision to give Paul Jones a free transfer that same summer – but on this particular day, the news that he had been sacked was not even the most sensational line carried by the town’s newspaper.

"Don't worry about me," the gruff-talking Scot growled to reporters on the way out, having reached a satisfactory settlement on the two years left on his contract, “I have been looked after.

"You just get yourself in there. There's one hell of a story waiting for you!"

Mullhall was right. For Wanderers wanted to make a statement with his successor and Edge would make one of the Bolton Evening News’s most famous headlines with what he was about to reveal.

Pele, to that point the best footballer that the world had ever seen, was the man at the top of Edge’s shortlist, not only to manage, but also to pull on the famous white shirt.

“I know it is a sensation,” Edge told reporters. “But why not?

“This is how ambitious we are. Even if it is just for one year we believe Pele can bring back the crowds to British football.

“We feel we have got to give it a crack. I don’t think Pele has ever been approached by an English club before.”

In fairness, he was right about the last bit. The legendary Brazilian had finished playing in the US some five years earlier and had starred in the film Escape to Victory alongside Sylvester Stallone and Michael Caine in 1981.

The man who – according to most statisticians – scored 775 goals in 840 games for club and country was clearly at a loss for something to do. Wanderers, then re-balancing a budget which would see them dispense with the services of Jones, Alan Gowling and Len Cantello that year, was the next logical step.

BEN sports editor Bob Parkinson could hardly contain his cynicism in a back page leader, having seen his own lead story sent to the front alongside reports from the Falklands War.

“Bolton Wanderers today insisted that their bid to land Edson Arantes do Nascimento – Pele to you and me – as their new player-manager was not a publicity stunt.

“However, it is sure to earn one or two horse laughs if only for its sheer cheek.

“Millionaire Pele is hardly likely to swap the sun and sand of Rio for the backstreets of Burnden Park, so when the club collect his certain and (hopefully) polite refusal, where can they turn next in their search for a man to restore their fortunes?”

More sober predictions came in the form of Bryan ‘Pop’ Robson, Mick Channon, or even the departing Gowling.

The following day, the BEN carried the rather inevitable news that Pele was not going to take up the vacant post.

“Pele said he was flattered and said he had not received any other offers to manage in England,” Edge said, adding that a contractual tie-up with Warner Brothers Communications was also a hindrance to him walking down the Manny Road.

He stressed, however, that the club would be “looking for a star figure and someone with charisma.”

That search would eventually lead them to two-time European Cup winner, John McGovern, a man who eventually ran marathons to help raise money to keep Burnden Park operating.

One wonders if Pele would ever have spotted Tony Caldwell playing at Horwich RMI?

Journalist Andy Buckley, who stepped in for the BEN’s chief football writer Gordon Sharrock to deliver the hammer blow that Pele would not succeed Mulhall, looks back with a mix of puzzlement and admiration for the way Wanderers went about the chase.

“On one hand we can all laugh about it now and know they never stood a chance,” he said. “But Bolton were – and are – a big deal. The name had a lot of cache, even though they were not in the top division.”

Buckley, who had joined the paper in 1979 and stood behind the goal for Frank Worthington’s famous goal against Ipswich Town the same year, reckoned chairman Edge knew exactly what he was doing by wrestling control of the headlines.

“I think some chairmen have a few of their club that is slightly fantastical,” he said. “And knowing the sports-desk and the paper back then, I doubt they would have gone anywhere near that story had he not put his name to the quotes. Gordon would have had my guts for garters if I had!

“But the fact we’re still talking about it fondly some 40 years later means he did something right. Any PR is good PR as they say!”

Speaking many years afterwards – the end of 2016 in fact – Pele said he had no recollection of his Bolton offer.

He did, however, recall training at the club’s Bromwich Street site during the 1966 World Cup and signing autographs for many a young supporter at the time.