The Pele Flattener - is he Spain's first step to winning the World Cup?

Meet the world-class character who brought Spain to Chattanooga

I met an interesting man yesterday and, no, it’s not the typical …. 'A taxi driver told me….’ story which reporters love.

His name is Bill Nuttall and, in his day, he was a goalkeeper with Miami Toros and Fort Lauderdale when the USA first tried to make ‘soccer’ a pro game in the early 1970s. That’s a picture of him with some Brazilian fella.

Bill’s Miami team-mate back then was the late, great Jim Holton, ‘Six Foot Two, Eyes of Blue, Big Jim Holton’s After You’ hero of my second-favourite all-time football match: Scotland 2-1 Czechoslovakia and he coached Scotland’s Peruvian nemesis Teófilo Cubillas, Der Bomber Gerd Müller, World Cup winning Bernd Holzenbein and Manchester United European Cup winning legends Brian Kidd and David Sadler, amongst others.

One of Bill’s best stories is the day he faced Pele (Miami v New York Cosmos, April 1976) and, in his own words: “Flattened him… it would have been a straight red these days but I wasn’t even booked!” Pele missed the subsequent penalty kick and Big Bill has lived nicely off the story ever since.