"Pele Soccer Day" - the Orr legacy
On 1st June 1973 the then mayor of Dade County in Florida, later the Representative for the whole of the state, issued a proclamation declaring the 6th of the month "Pele Soccer Day". It reads:
"Whereas: Among all the sports of the world soccer is the one with the largest following in the greatest number of nations, and
Whereas: As an international sport, soccer represents the common interest of people throughout the world. and
Whereas: The Miami Toros of the North American Soccer League are acting as hosts to the Santos soccer team from Brazil and their star player, Pele, is considered the greatest soccer player in the history of the shirt, and
Whereas: Santos and the Toros will meet in competition on 6th June 1972 at the Orange Bowl, giving an opportunity to Metropolitan Dade County residents to enjoy Pele in action,
Now, therefore: BE IT RESOLVED THAT I, JOHN B. ORR JNR, MAYOR OF METROPOLITAN DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA, do hereby proclaim Wednesday, June 6th, 1973, as
PELE SOCCER DAY
Now, and despite Florida as an entirety having virtually no Association football history of note, it might have been thought enough that there was to be a visit from the great man and his team-mates. But then the local Toros team, previously the Gatos and probably aimed above all at the local Hispanic community, had not been doing well in its by then six-year-old league. That season it would finish third and bottom, albeit marginally so, of the Eastern Division. So why would an obviously non-Latino, pictured right, get so excited about what was then indeed the World's greatest player? With the answer perhaps in the name John B. Orr itself, John Barclay Orr, and the memories contained in three photographs below.
Alexander Orr Snr.
John Barclay Orr Snr.
Alexander Orr Jnr.
Alexander Orr was John Barclay Orr Jnr.'s grandfather. He was born in 1850 and died in Dade County in 1930. So had been twenty-one when football, when he would have first been touched by soccer. John Barclay Orr, a builder to trade, a working-man, was John Jnr.'s father, born in 1886, dying young again in Dade County in 1932. Alexander Orr Jnr., his trade plumbing, another and very successful grafter, was John Jnr.'s uncle, born in 1878 with his passing in Dade County once more and in 1958. And the birth-place of all three - Glasgow. John Barclay Jnr. might outside have been a well-off, American-boy but he had been telt tha' tales fae hame and, round-ball passion-passed, inside he could and did not forget. And perhaps he knew even, understood that in Brazil it had been two Scots, who had made Pele possible.