MAN’S BEST FRIEND GETS ENGLAND OUT OF A PICKLE
Proof that every dog will have its’ day
A SHAGGY DOG STORY
The story of England winning the football (soccer) World Cup in July 1966, is one that has been told numerous times over my lifetime. It was the first football match that I remember watching live on television, albeit in hazy black and white.
World Cup Willie - The mascot for the 1966 World Cup hosted by England.
Plenty of nerves, countless cups of tea and prayers to all the football Gods, managed to get the Three Lions over the line, with no little thanks to a Russian linesman and a Sir Geoff Hurst hat trick. England 4 - West Germany 2 after extra time.
They thought it was all over and it was, but the fact that it may not have even started is often brushed aside.
The possibility that the entire tournament may well, not have even been able to go ahead is another part of the story that often gets overlooked. The actual trophy itself went missing in the March of 1966 and the day was only saved by an unlikely four legged hero.
The English Football Association was left panicking over the theft of the World Cup less than four months before the tournament was due to begin.
Embarrassingly the Jules Rimet Trophy itself (The World Cup) had been lost/stolen whilst on display in March in London. The blushes of an entire nation and especially the Football Association were to be spared by a shaggy dog story.
In short a dog called Pickles got us all out of a pickle.
The iconic image of Bobby Moore lifting the Jules Rimet trophy could have been very different but for the crucial intervention of a mixed breed collie called Pickles, because before the World Cup was won, it was lost !
AMATEUR HOUR
The Jules Rimet trophy was on display at a stamp exhibition in central London but on Sunday, 20 March - just the second day it was on show, it was removed from its’ case in Westminster’s Central Hall.
With the security guards absent on a break ( a cup of tea must have been involved I would wager) the exact circumstances of how the cup was taken remain a mystery.
“The idea there were people by the display case all the time is just not true,” said Doctor Martin Atherton, author of the book ‘The Theft of the Jules Rimet Trophy’.
“The whole thing was amateurish - the fact the FA let the trophy out, the security arrangements and the whole recovery of the trophy. It came out that one of the security guards was 74 years old or something. The security was quite inadequate”.
He continued - “We think two people broke in through an emergency exit, took the trophy and walked out again”.
CALLING WHITEHALL 1212
Police at Scotland Yard took control of the investigation but had few leads. It must have been like a scene from one of those brilliant silent movies featuring The Keystone Cops.
“There were two separate descriptions of two clearly different people - a tall person and a short person,” said Atherton.
“The description the police put out was an amalgamation of the two.”
In the meantime, the Football Association secretly commissioned a replica of the trophy to be made by silversmith George Bird.
A ransom note was received by then FA chairman Joe Mears, signed by someone called Jackson, demanding £15,000.
On police advice Mears, who was also chairman of Chelsea Football Club, pretended to agree to the deal.
An undercover policeman met Jackson - who was really a former soldier called Edward Betchley - in Battersea Park with a suitcase stuffed with newspapers covered with a layer of £5 notes, and Betchley was eventually arrested.
What an embarrassing mess, and panic levels continued to rise as the tournament drew ever closer. Would we even have the original trophy to present to the eventual winners ?
David Corbett and his dog Pickles - the unlikely heroes of the World Cup 1966
