THE WORLD THIS MONTH
“We only got news at the weekend that
they were looking into a new nomination...sadly Gordon died 48 hours later”
Former Stoke City team-mate Terry Conroy on the administrative error that
saw Gordon Banks miss out on a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours listOBITUARIESGordon BANKS
(1937-2019)
England’s ever-dwindling band of 1966
World Cup-winners has been reduced
to seven with the death, at the age of 81,
of Gordon Banks, probably his country’s
greatest goalkeeper.
The remarkable facet of the Banks
legend is that even more than 1966 he
is remembered for his astonishing save
from Pele in a group game in the finals
in Mexico four years later.
One of the flood of tributes to Banks,
from his agent Terry Banks, summed him
up perfectly as “having worn his fame
lightly”. Banks revealed in 2015 that he
was fighting kidney cancer for a second
time, having
lost a kidney to
the disease 10
years earlier.
He had
also been a
high-profile
and active
supporter of a
campaign for
research into
dementia.
He is
survived by his
wife, Ursula, whom he met during his
national service in Germany in 1955,
and their three children: Robert, Wendy
and Julia.
Born on December 30, 1937, Banks
won 73 caps for England between 1963
and 1972, when he lost an eye in a car
crash. Four years later he made a brief
comeback in the now-defunct North
American Soccer League with Fort
Lauderdale Strikers.
Hailing from Sheffield, he started with
Chesterfield in March 1953 and played
for their junior team in the 1956 FA
Youth Cup Final. He made his first-team
debut in November 1958 and was still
working as a bricklayer when he was sold
to Leicester City for £7,000 in July 1959.
He played in two losing FA Cup Finals,
in 1961 and 1963, but was a winner in
the League Cup in 1964 and then again
in 1972, five years after a world-record
£50,000 transfer to Stoke City.
Of the 1970 World Cup “miracle save”,
Pele said years later: “I scored 1,goals and no one remembers any of
them, instead they remember the one
I didn’t score.
“From the moment I headed it I was
sure it had gone in. I had already began
to jump to celebrate the goal. Then I
looked back and I couldn’t believe it
hadn’t gone in.”
Unfortunately for England in Mexico,
Banks missed the quarter-final defeat
against West Germany through illness
and the holders lost 3-2 in extra-time
after leading 2-0.
Notably, in
1966, it took
442 minutes,
until the end
of the semi-
final against
Portugal, for
Banks to finally
concede hisfirst goal, with a Eusebio penalty ending
a seven-match clean sheet sequence
which remains an England record.
Banks’ death was announced in a
statement from his family: “It is with great
sadness that we announce that Gordon
passed away peacefully overnight.
“We are devastated to lose him but we
have so many happy memories and
could not have been more proud
of him.”
Banks is the fourth player of
the England team from the 1966
World Cup Final to have
died, after Bobby
Moore, Ray Wilson
and Alan Ball.
Tributes were led
by old team-mates,
with Bobby Charlton
saying: “Gordon was a
fantastic goalkeeper,Memories...with a
photo of his save
from PeleWinner...League Cup in 1972Ph
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