GORDON BANKS
1937 - 2019
MARTIN SAMUEL PETER SHILTON JEFF POWELL IAN LADYMAN
WHEN he sat down to talk ahead of the 50th anniversary of the greatest day of his career, Gordon Banks knew that time may no longer be on his side.
He was 78 then, back on a cold January lunchtime three years ago, and had been diagnosed with kidney cancer for the second time. That morning he had met with former Stoke City team-mates for a walk, a weekly ritual.
‘ We were talking,’ he said. ‘ Time is racing on.’
Time finally ran out on English football’s most famous goalkeeper yesterday and another link to that fabulous day at Wembley in 1966 has been cut.
Banks was a hero in sporting terms. He did heroic things. He won the World Cup, he denied Pele. Not many did either of those.
But he was also a gentle, modest man, a lover of his profession and inspiration to those who followed. Yesterday three England goalkeepers — Jack Butland, Ben Foster and Jordan Pickford — were quick to point out their small debt to the man who so long ago had given everybody else something glorious to aim at.
Ask him for memories of the 1966 World Cup final and he would immediately talk about other people. Alan Ball and then his wife, Ursula.
Why, Banks asked when we met, could more people not see that Ball had been the best player that day at Wembley?
‘Others got the headlines but we couldn’t have won it without Bally,’ he sighed.
And why, when the England and West German players sat down together for a post-match dinner at a hotel in Kensington were the players’ wives not invited?
‘We had hardly seen them for six weeks,’ reflected Banks. ‘But they made them eat in a separate room.’
To some degree, it was this that set Banks apart a little. He could see bigger pictures, a world beyond his own involvement. When he was struck down by food poisoning ahead of the 1970 World Cup quarter-final against the Germans in Mexico, his replacement Peter Bonetti made a crucial mistake as England lost 3-2.
‘I felt sorry for him above all else,’ recalled Banks. ‘He was a fine keeper and should never be blamed. He was out of practice.’
Banks firmly believed he was poisoned deliberately that day. As years passed by, that view only hardened. He also believed England should have won the tournament.
‘Brazil won it and we were as good as them,’ he said. That tournament produced Banks’ most famous moment, his save from Pele’s header when England met Brazil in the group stages in Guadalajara. Typically, he felt he got a bit lucky.
‘The pitches were rock hard,’ he recalled three years ago.
‘The ball would come up higher than normal. It meant I could anticipate that and flick it over.’
The soles of his feet were sore that day when we met in Staffordshire, a side effect of his cancer treatment. Apart from that, you would not have known he was unwell.
He carried the burden as he carried his fame, gently.
I asked for a photograph with Banks that lunchtime, something I had not done at an interview before. I wanted to show my father. None of us meet proper heroes very often.