Getty Gordon Banks looks on during a game circa 1967
Stoke City fans around the world are invited to watch the funeral Gordon Banks at the best365 Stadium via Stoke On Trent Live. The event can be watched on Stoke City’s club website. Thousands have arrived in person and line the streets of Stoke. The cortège wrapped the Stoke City this morning. The event begins at 8:30 a.m. EST.
The son of a steelworker, Banks was born in Sheffield and died of kidney cancer at the age of 81 on February 12, 2019. Monday, March 4, 2019 marks the 47th anniversary of Stoke’s 1972 League Cup final win over Chelsea, Sky Sports reports.
“Banksy” was a Legendary Goalkeeper
“Gordon began his career with Chesterfield, was at Leicester when he won the World Cup in 1966 and was at Stoke when he won the last of his 73 caps for England in 1972,” reports Coventry Live.
The World Cup player is considered one of the greatest English soccer players of all time. His daughter called him a “great goalkeeper and a great dad” in conversation with BBC.
Banks played for Leicester City for eight years before spending five seasons with Stoke, and was named the Football Writers’ Player of the Year in 1972.
Gordon Banks poses for a TV crew during the Football Association’s Royal Mail Stamp Launch at on May 8, 2013 in London, England.
“Banks played 73 times for England and was a key figure in Sir Alf Ramsey’s legendary 1966 side. However it’s Banks’s twisting save from Brazilian superstar Pelé that he is often best remembered for, a save deemed ‘one of the greatest feats of goalkeeping,'” reports The Guardian.
Save of the Century
It was the “save of the century” in Mexico that crystallized his legendary status. In his autobiography, Banks recalls “why, when he climbed to his feet after that wondrous save from Pele at the 1970 World Cup, he did so with a chuckle. ‘I was laughing at what Bobby Moore had just said to me,’ Banks would write years later of his most famous save. ‘You’re getting old, Banksy,’ Bobby quipped. ‘You used to hold on to them,’” reports The Telegraph.
“Banks flung himself to his right and, in a feat which seemed to defy the laws of physics, somehow managed with one hand not only to keep Pele’s powerful downward header out, but also flick the ball over the bar,” reports Stoke On Trent Live.
Banks was an iconic figure not just in England, but around the globe. He is survived by his wife Ursula and three children, Julia, Robert, and Wendy.
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