Football: Fans line streets to pay tribute to 1966 World Cup hero Banks

Banks, England’s goalkeeper during their victorious 1966 World Cup campaign on home soil, died on Feb 12, aged eighty-one. The numerous achievements of Banks, who also gained the League Cup with Stoke and Leicester, had been displayed on a large screen as a chant of “England’s number one” broke out. Sheffield-born Banks made nearly two hundred appearances for Stoke in crucial England and became named the membership’s president following the death of Stanley Matthews on the flip of the century. He became probable quality recognized for a terrific save he produced to disclaim Brazilian first-rate Pele in a 1970 World Cup organization healthy. A statue erected in Banks’s honor, conserving the Jules Rimet trophy aloft, turned into adorned with numerous Stoke and England scarves.

Jack Butland, Joe Anyon, and Kasper Schmeichel, the modern quantity ones at the three English golf equipment Banks played for – Stoke, Chesterfield, and Leicester, and England stalwart Joe Hart, served for the funeral service at Stoke Minster. The floor was decorated with shirts, flags, and even goalkeeping gloves in tribute to one of the town’s favored adopted sons. “He becomes a joker, a funny guy, for over 50 years and whenever we met throughout our careers or years after he could come up with and funny story.”

Hurst started his eulogy by jokingly referencing his penalty stored by Banks inside the League Cup semi-very last among Stoke and West Ham in December 1971. West Ham was beaten after a replay. Hurst stated: “Gordon Banks … Contributed to the worst second of my footballing career.” As properly as Hurst, Bobby and Jack Charlton, both of whom started alongside Banks inside the 1966 World Cup final win over Germany at Wembley, have been among the attending mourners.