Gordon Banks was relatively small but incredibly fast, as Pele discovered
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WELL Saint Peter can move over, for starters.
There can only be one keeper of the Pearly Gates now that Gordon Banks is gone.
Like all of the Boys of 66, Banks held the status of a celestial saint in England’s sporting consciousness.
But like only his captain, Bobby Moore, Banks of England became legendary in not one World Cup but two.
All eleven of those who faced West Germany at Wembley on July 30, 1966 are assured of the highest place in folklore.
But the goalkeeper’s greatest save — perhaps the greatest save of all — arrived in Guadalajara, Mexico, four years later, a miraculous effort to keep out a Pele header.
Banks said he heard Pele shout ‘goal’ as soon as he landed his nut on it.
The next thing Banks heard was a roar from the crowd to hail his own superhuman reactions in flinging himself backwards and low to push it around the post.
Banks tried to act all nonchalant ‘as if I was always making those kind of saves’.
On the after-dinner circuit, Banks would claim his captain Moore then hammered him for not holding on to the ball, although Alan Mullery claims it was him who said that to his keeper.
Had Banks not been struck down by food poisoning before the 1970 quarter- final against the West Germans, England would probably have reached a second successive World Cup final and had a second stab at Pele’s Brazil. To any of us under the age of 50, the majesty of Banks can only be garnered from highlights reels and hushed hearsay.
From memorabilia and from the recollections of friends and relatives who were there in 1966.
All eleven players sit on the loftiest pedestals, perhaps even loftier for the majority of us who never saw them have a bad game, as even Banks and Moore must have done.
After Banks’ death at the age of 81, only seven of that greatest England team remain. Moore and Alan Ball died far too young. Ray Wilson was taken from us nine months ago and several others are in poor health.
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Until around a decade ago, most of them would meet for an annual golf day, swapping anecdotes and taking the p*** out of each other like any group of English mates.
In time, too many bones became weary, too many minds began to wander — heading those heavy old-school footballs had taken its toll — and eventually they called time on those get-togethers.
But they all remembered 1966 as the time of their lives, when youth, supreme talent and uncommon spirit had aligned to make legends of them.
One of the greatest honours of my career was ghostwriting Jimmy Greaves — a man so warm, engaging and generous with his time that he made every single great of that era feel like he was a personal friend of a friend.
And if you ask England’s greatest goalscorer of his time, to name the finest keeper he ever faced, he’d give honourable mentions to Lev Yashin, Bert Trautmann and his own Tottenham team-mate Pat Jennings, before settling on Banks as the best of all.
I was lucky enough to meet Banks, along with 1966 team-mate Roger Hunt, around the time of the 40th anniversary, during those lean years when England couldn’t even come close to emulating them.
I was struck by Banks’ decency and politeness and also by the twinkle in his one good eye — he lost the sight in the other in a car crash in 1972, which prematurely ended his career.
There was a twinkle when Banks recalled the schoolmasterly Sir Alf Ramsey, the wisecracking Jack Charlton, the life and soul that was Nobby Stiles.
I was also struck by how relatively small Banks was. In latter years he wasn’t at his fighting height of 6ft 1in and he was slight of frame.
According to Greaves, though, it was Banks’ speed which made him unique.
Most keepers relied so much on positioning, he said, but with Gordon that hardly mattered. It was his speed off the line and also his lightning reflexes as he flung himself across goal.
As even Pele discovered to his cost.
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