The phrase ‘baptism of fire’ doesn’t quite do justice to Belinda Ahamed’s start to Manchester United life.
Hired during the huge recruitment drive that accompanied the opening of Old Trafford’s new Museum in 1998, within two weeks Belinda was chatting away with football icon Pele, who had been invited to inaugurate the new space.
“He was just one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life,” Belinda says of the Brazil legend. “So lovely. Whenever you spoke to him, you’d shake his hand and say ‘Hello, how are you?’ and whatever, and he’d just say: ‘No, it’s my pleasure.