Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I gave Nobby a fake trophy after Cup final
Cop’s secret mission after theft scare
A FORMER police officer has told how he took the World Cup trophy off Nobby Stiles and replaced it with a fake after England’s 1966 victory.
The footie legend, who died last week aged 78, had just been pictured dancing around the pitch at Wembley when Peter Weston approached him.
The FA sent the rookie PC to swap the Jules Rimet trophy for a replica as a precaution after its dramatic theft and recovery a few months earlier.
Peter told podcast Stealing Victory: The Untold Story of the 1966 World Cup Heist: “I had it under my tunic, walked into the dressing room and bedlam, it was packed with people. My main thinking was ‘I hope Jackie Charlton’s not holding it’ as Jackie would have told me to go away. Out of sheer luck, Nobby was sitting almost in tears with it in his lap, on his own.
“I just said, ‘Nobby you have this and I’ll have that,’ and he looked at me and went ‘OK’ and I took the real one and out I went. Straight out and then put it in the boot of the car.”
Nobby never told his teammates and, oblivious, they went on celebrating with the fake.
The Jules Rimet trophy had been stolen in March that year, swiped from a cabinet while on show in an exhibition in Westminster. Seven days later, David
Corbett was walking his dog Pickles when he found the trophy in his front garden.
Mr Corbett collected £6,000 in rewards – six times the amount the England players got for winning the match on July 30.
Cr ystal Palace fan Peter was four months i nto his training when told to go to the FA with two senior PCS on the morning of the final against West Germany, which England would win 4-2.
Asked if he knew why he was summoned, he said: “We didn’t have a clue, not until we were introduced to the secretary. He went on to explain, ‘This is the World Cup, this is the replica. You will be taking these to the stadium where you will be met by the head of security. If England win, we want you to swap trophies when you get the chance’.”
The real trophy was stored i n a Central London bank vault until it was handed to the next hosts, Mexico.
The fake toured the country – appearing on Blue Peter with
Pickles – and was eventually auctioned by its maker’s family, with FIFA paying £250,000 for it.
The real Jules Rimet was lost for good when it was stolen again in 1983, this time in Brazil.
Stealing Victory follows the Daily Mirror’s probe into who actually stole the cup in 1966 after th e crime remain ed unsolved for five decades.
It explores claims a deal was done between the police and thieves, uncovers police corruption claims against the officer who recovered it and delves into th e seedy world of 1960s gangland London.
Stream and nd download Stealing Victory ry at auddy.co