LONDON: England’s ever-dwindling band of 1966 World Cup winners has been reduced to seven with the death at 81 of Gordon Banks, probably his country’s greatest goalkeeper writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

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 match 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 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.

'That' save . . . by Banks from Pele in Mexico in 1970

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.

Banks, born on December 30, 1937, 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 Ford Lauderdale Strikers.

Yorkshireman Banks, from Sheffield, started with Chesterfield in March 1953 and played for their youth 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.

Stoke transfer

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 his then world record £50,000 transfer to Stoke.

By then Banks had added his 1970 World Cup ‘miracle save’ to his 1966 triumph.

Pele, years later, said: “I scored 1,000 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 his first goal, with a Eusebio penalty ending a seven-match clean sheet sequence which remains an England record.

Banks’s 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.”

He 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.

‘One of the best’

Old team-mates’ tribute were led by Sir Bobby Charlton, one of seven continuing survivors from 1966 along with George Cohen, Jack Charlton, Nobby Stiles, Martins Peters, Roger Hunt and Sir Geoff Hurst.

Charlton said: “Gordon was a fantastic goalkeeper, without doubt one of the best England has ever had. I was proud to call him a team-mate. Obviously we shared that great day in 1966 but it was more than that. Even though I was on the pitch and have seen it many times since, I still don’t know how he saved that header from Pele.”

Hurst, tweeted: “One of the very greatest. Thinking especially of Ursula, Julia, Wendy and Robert. Sad for football, Stoke City and for England fans.” Ex-England goalkeeper Peter Shilton, who replaced Banks at Leicester, tweeted: “I’m devastated – today I’ve lost my hero.”

In 2002, Banks was appointed club president by Stoke and a statue of a smiling Banks holding the Jules Rimet trophy aloft was unveiled at the ground in 2008 – in the presence of both the man himself and Pele.

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