Pele will be attending Stoke City's Britannia Stadium to unveil a statue of the great former England keeper Gordon Banks.

On 12th July this year a Pele XI will take on a Gordon Banks XI in a charity game to mark the unveilling of the statue. The assistant manager of the Pele XI will be Archbishop Desmond Tutu in recognition of the charity work Banks has done in Africa.

This is quite a tribute for Banks who recognises that this type of event is normally reserved for people who have died! "I hope it's not an omen, normally they only put up statues of people that are dead."

I have recently written about the fact Pele is probably regarded as the best player of all time. If we looked at the best goalkeepers of all time then Banksy would definitely be in the mix.

Gordon Banks won 73 caps for England and was of course part of the 1966 World Cup winning team. His career came to a premature end when he lost an eye in a car accident. Despite winning the World Cup in 1966, Banks is probably best remembered for two incidents in the following tournament in 1970 in Mexico.

The first thing is that he missed the quarter-final defeat to West Germany through illness. Chelsea keeper Peter Bonetti took over and England lost 3-2. They wouldn't have done if Banks had been fit.

The main reason he is remembered is for one save in the group match against Brazil. Pele powered a header towards the near post and Banks made great ground to get across his goal and somehow get the ball around the post after it had seemingly gone past him. It was a wonderful save.

It has gone down in legend as 'the save'. If you put 'best save ever' in Google you get several entries about that one save.

The World Cup 1970 is one of my earliest football memories. I was eight years old and I remember being totally amazed by the Brazilian team who seemed to play a slightly different game to the one I had started to watch at Vicarage Road, the home of my beloved Watford. They both wore yellow shirts but that was about the only thing that connected the two.

The Banks save shocked and amazed me. I couldn't believe that a human being could do what he did. The fact that the header was from the great Pele made it even more incredible to me as a child.

Was it actually the best save ever? In reality, probably not, but you'll never convince me of that. It was a wonderful moment and the event on July 12th in Stoke will bring back some very happy memories for those of us who are sadly old enough to remember that day.