by Gordon Banks
Apart from a sparkling spell of form between 21 December and 18 January during which we registered five successive wins in the League, including a fine double over reigning champions Everton, we never realized what I believed to be our true potential. Our wayward form resulted in us losing more games at home (8) than we did on our travels (7), which is not the way to win the championship. However, it was the League Cup that was to occupy our minds during the months ahead.
In the three years since its inception in 1960 the League Cup had come on a bit. It would never possess the ivy-covered venerability of its big brother, the FA Cup, but after three finals it was beginning to grow in importance in the minds of club officials, players and supporters alike. There were still those in the game, however, who believed the competition only added to an already congested fixture programme, and that it was an untidy tournament that lurched through the season from August until the end of April. The League Cup was, in fact, a creature of the night (specifically, midweek evenings). It was rarely played on a Saturday, the only instance being one leg of the previous season’s semi-final between Sunderland and Aston Villa, when those clubs found themselves with a free weekend having both been knocked out of the FA Cup.
Having been given a bye in round one, we began our League Cup campaign modestly enough with a 2–0 win over Fourth Division Aldershot. The club’s youth policy was beginning to bear fruit and Matt took this opportunity to blood one of our aspiring youngsters, Bob Newton, who scored our opening goal. (Sadly, that goal proved to be the highlight of Bob’s career at Leicester. He never established himself in the first team but later went on to make a name for himself in non-league football.) Newton’s appearance against Aldershot showed that Matt was not afraid to call youngsters up for the first team. Moreover, some of these youngsters were to play important roles in our success in the League Cup.
In round three Tranmere Rovers were beaten 2–1, one of our goals coming from Bobby Roberts, for whom Matt had paid a club record fee of £41,000 to Motherwell. Bobby’s form when he first arrived at Filbert Street mirrored that of the team itself – inconsistent, probably because Matt couldn’t decide his best position. At various times he played Roberts as a defender, a central midfield player, an orthodox winger and even at centre forward, always with wholehearted commitment irrespective of where he was playing. Once he settled into a holding role in midfield, Bobby began to repay his fee with consummate ease and considerable success.
Bobby was a terrific competitor with a cannon-like shot, but his accuracy rarely matched his power and his wayward shooting was often a source of frustration to Bert Johnson: ‘One of these days, Bobby, son, you’ll knock the hands off the town hall clock.’ Shooting high, wide and handsome became such a trait of Bobby that, when he received the ball twenty yards from goal and shaped to strike it, from my end of the pitch I often saw the Leicester supporters anticipate the destiny of that ball and brace themselves behind the goal before Bobby even hit it. Wayward finishing apart, Bobby was a super player and once established in our midfield proved himself to be a player of real class. Today, he is widely regarded by Leicester supporters as one of the club’s all-time greats and deservedly so. Bobby kept himself match-fit even when he was manager of Wrexham in the eighties, for whom he played at the age of forty-three. I remember once coming across Bobby when he was a coach at Leicester. I had long since retired from playing, but there was Bobby, training as hard as ever. He is still involved in football, as chief scout for Derby County.
Following our defeat of Tranmere, Gillingham were our next victims, which set up a quarter-final meeting against Norwich City, who had won the League Cup in its second season. A Howard Riley goal cancelled out one from Ron Davies for Norwich and, with a semi-final against West Ham beckoning both teams, we met again in the replay at Filbert Street.
It was Norwich’s first visit to Filbert Street for twenty-seven years. The last meeting between the two clubs had taken place in the FA Cup at Norwich in 1954, back in the days when each Leicester player used to take a whiff of oxygen at half time in the hope that it would pep them up. I’m not sure what good this did – nor did anyone else, for this cranky idea was soon dropped. All we had in my time was an interval cup of tea.
Norwich proved to be tough opponents and included in their ranks Tommy Bryceland, a hugely gifted inside forward, Bill Punton, a speedy and tricky left winger, and the Welsh centre forward, Ron Davies, one of the best headers of a ball in the game at the time. This was a typical cup tie, full of blood and thunder and played at breakneck speed. With the score at 1–1 and the game into extra time, Howard Riley settled it to send us through to a meeting with West Ham in a two-legged semi-final.
West Ham’s style was in marked contrast to the ‘up and at’em’ style of Norwich City. Prompted by Bobby Moore, their build-up from the back was like distant thunder at a picnic. Just when we thought we were having a good time of it, the ominous presence of Moore would gather in midfield and the off-the-ball-running of Johnny Byrne, Geoff Hurst, Ronnie Boyce and John Sissons would soon swamp us. We’d score, only for West Ham to come straight back at us. Their attacks were sophisticated.
When coming out of defence they always did so by passing the ball along the deck with slide-rule precision. Rarely, if ever, did the ball go in the air. When West Ham moved the ball into our half of the field, the darting runs of Hurst, Boyce and Sissons rocked us on our heels. A blend of skill and silky passing was their only arbiter, and the quality of football displayed by both sides gave the game the flavour almost of an idyll. Rarely had the expectation of a football treat been more thoroughly roused as it was on this night, and rarely had it been so completely satisfied. A tremendous game of football ended 4–3 in our favour, but we still had much work to do.
As a football spectacle, the second leg at Upton Park was, if anything, even better. Frank McLintock gave us the lead. Then Bobby Roberts remembered Bert Johnson’s instruction and managed to keep his head over the ball when shooting to give us the considerable comfort of a two-goal lead on the night and 6–3 on aggregate. To their credit, West Ham refused to panic or resort to shabby tactics and continued to play the purist football they were so well known for. Their valiant efforts, however, were to no avail and we marched on to a two-legged final against Stoke City, conquerors of Manchester City in the other semi-final.
The first leg was at the Victoria Ground and for my third cup final in four seasons the Leicester team lined up as follows: Gordon Banks; John Sjoberg, Colin Appleton; Graham Cross, Ian King, Max Dougan; Howard Riley, Terry Heath, Ken Key-worth, Davie Gibson, Mike Stringfellow. Stoke, for their part, fielded Lawrie Leslie; Bill Asprey, Tony Allen; Calvin Palmer, George Kinnell, Eric Skeels; Peter Dobing, Dennis Viollet, John Ritchie, Jimmy McIlroy, Keith Bebbington.
Matt Gillies was continuing with his policy of giving promising young City players a chance. Richie Norman was injured and, with Colin Appleton assuming Richie’s role at left back, the youngster Max Dougan played on the left side of midfield. Another young prospect, Terry Heath, replaced the injured Frank McLintock, though with Graham Cross dropping back, Terry enjoyed a more forward role in midfield.
We never really got into our stride against a wily and experienced Stoke side. There had been a lot of rain and the Victoria Ground pitch was very greasy. (We were later told the muddy conditions so suited Stoke that their manager, Tony Waddington, had persuaded the local fire brigade to water the pitch on the morning of the game!) Such greasy conditions always spell trouble for a goalkeeper. When opposing forwards try a speculative shot the ball tends to skid off the wet surface at an alarming speed, which makes judgement difficult. I found myself in such a predicament when going down low to save from the Stoke full back Bill Asprey. I thought I had the ball covered, but it reared up at speed and it was all I could do to claw it away from goal. The Potters’ left winger, Keith Bebbington, needed no second invitation and promptly buried the loose ball in the back of the net.
Though we
never reproduced the stylish, fluent football of our two semi-finals against West Ham, we were never out of the game and when Terry Heath blocked an attempted clearance by a Stoke defender, there was Davie Gibson to pounce on the loose ball and equalize.
For the return leg, Matt brought in another youngster of promise, Tom Sweeney, in place of Terry Heath. With Richie Norman fit again, Colin Appleton resumed his normal role at the expense of Max Dougan. A crowd of over 25,000 turned up at Filbert Street with great expectations of seeing us win the club’s first major trophy.
We didn’t disappoint them. Mike Stringfellow scored a cracking goal to give us a half-time lead. Two minutes into the second period, however, Denis Viollet, one of the original Busby Babes, put Stoke level, only for Davie Gibson to restore our lead with a glancing near-post header. When Howard Riley added to our tally, I knew there was only one destination for the League Cup. With only seconds remaining, Stoke City’s George Kinnell, a cousin of Jim Baxter, pulled a goal back for Stoke, but by then it was academic. The 3–2 scoreline gave Leicester City their first major trophy since their foundation as Leicester Fosse back in 1884!
It’s an odd-looking trophy, the League Cup. For a start it has three handles – I have never discovered why. Unlike the FA Cup, it has neither a lid nor a plinth. The three handles take the form of serpents, though again, I have no idea why. In winning the League Cup, each player received an inscribed tankard rather than a medal, which I found a little disappointing. The tankard resembles any other tankard you might see hanging up at the back of a public bar, only the League Cup tankards were suitably inscribed. That the League Cup had yet fully to capture the imagination of football in general did not detract from our joy at having won it. As a team we were delighted, but even more so for the club and its supporters.
My international career really took off during this season. I became England’s regular goalkeeper and received the ultimate honour when I was picked to play for my country against the Rest of the World in a game celebrating the centenary of the Football Association. I’m such a patriot I would have played for my country for nothing; however, for the opportunity of playing against the Rest of the World I would have willingly paid the FA.
Such was the interest in this game that Wembley had sold out six weeks before the match was due to take place. When I walked into the dressing room, picked up one of the complimentary match programmes and looked at the team line-ups, my eyes nearly came out on stalks. Lining up against us were some of the greatest players ever to have graced the game: Eusebio of Portugal, Alfredo di Stefano and Paco Gento of Spain, Denis Law, Jim Baxter, Raymond Kopa of France, West Germany’s Uwe Seeler, the magical Magyar, Ferenc Puskas and one of my all-time heroes, the Russian goalkeeper Lev Yashin. I couldn’t believe that, after only five games for England, I was about to play against some of the most revered names in football.
Yashin was known throughout the world as the Black Octopus. He invariably wore all black when playing and the assimilation with an octopus came from his superb handling of the ball. No matter how hard a shot, irrespective of the angle, he always seemed to get a hand to the ball. And what hands they were. Lev Yashin had hands like shovels and fingers like bananas; in my entire career in football I don’t think I ever saw a goalkeeper with bigger hands. When he jumped to punch the ball clear, he achieved incredible distance. Little wonder: physically he was very strong and when he balled one of his massive hands into a fist, it was like a ham-shank.
Yashin played as a goal-tender for Dynamo, the KGB’s ice-hockey team, and it was after watching their sister-team, the mighty Moscow Dynamo, and particularly their goalkeeper Alexei Khomich, that he turned his attention to football. In 1951 he was understudy to his hero and when Khomich was injured playing against Moscow Spartak, Lev, as a substitute, came off the bench and replaced him. Within minutes of coming on, Lev conceded a goal, then another. It was an unpromising start but Lev quickly demonstrated that he had a very special talent for goalkeeping and such were his performances he kept his hero on the bench. By 1956 Lev had established himself in the Russian international side with whom he won a gold medal at the Melbourne Olympics.
He played seventy-eight times for Russia and his performances and great sportsmanship resulted in his being awarded the two highest honours the Soviet government could bestow on a civilian, the Order of Lenin and the Honoured Master of Soviet Sport.
All Russian footballers were supposedly amateurs and Lev’s job was nominally that of a police sergeant, though I doubt if he did much policing as he was always playing football for his club or country, for which he must have been in full-time training.
He spent several years of his playing career on tour as the Soviet authorities were keen to use football teams in an ambassadorial or propaganda role – and, quite often, both.
The policy of the Russians was to keep their best players together at one club, such as Moscow Dynamo, and then select them en bloc to play in major international tournaments. He appeared in three World Cups, the last in 1966, when his goalkeeping helped Russia reach the semi-finals. When he eventually retired from football in 1970 his club, Moscow Dynamo, played a Rest of the World XI in his testimonial and a crowd of 120,000 turned up at the Lenin Stadium to see it.
I met him on a number of occasions. Though obviously aware of his world-wide fame, he was a very modest man, quietly spoken and extremely polite. For someone who was supposedly a Russian policeman and played for a club with strong links to the KGB, he had a great sense of humour and would often make light of the harsh realities of Russian life. He spoke a little English but relied on an interpreter, but that didn’t stop him telling jokes at the expense of Communism.
Following a visit by the Russian international team to France, I asked Lev what he thought of Paris.
‘It’s amazing,’ he said, ‘all those people in Paris and the Government only has one watch tower!’
In 1966 the Cold War was thawing and though there was still much mistrust between western countries and the Soviet bloc, relationships between the two were slowly getting better. According to Lev, life was also beginning to improve for ordinary Russian citizens, though food and the domestic appliances we took for granted in the West were still scarce.
One of Lev Yashin’s favourite stories concerned a man in Moscow who went to queue for meat at his local butcher. For four hours the man waited in a long, snaking queue for some meat. When he eventually reached the door of the butcher’s shop he was turned away by a KGB officer, who told him that the shop had run out of meat. The man was furious. He waved his fists at the KGB officer and with a volley of expletives told the officer exactly what he thought of the Soviet Government and Communism.
‘Go back to your home,’ said the KGB officer, ‘and think yourself lucky to have a leader such as Comrade Brezhnev. If Stalin was still in power, you would have been taken away and shot for saying such things.’
The man glumly returned home to his wife, who asked him what meat he had managed to buy.
‘No meat.’
She got very angry. ‘No meat for the family! Nothing has changed. Things are still bad!’ said the wife.
‘It’s worse than you think,’ said the man. ‘They’ve run out of bullets!’
I would laugh at his jokes but not as much as Lev himself. Football enabled him to see the world outside Russia. What he made of it, I don’t know. Perhaps, having seen life in democratic countries enabled him to put life at home into perspective and making jokes about the harsh realities of life under the Communists helped him cope with it.
In his later years Lev suffered from ill health, which necessitated the amputation of a leg. He died in 1998, but his legend lives on, not only in Russia, but throughout the football world, where his name will for ever be synonymous with great goalkeeping.
The Rest of the World team read like a who’s who of football greats of that era. Though they were playing together for the very first time in what was billed as a friendly, I had no doubt w
hatsoever that the Rest of the World team would provide stern opposition and a severe test of Alf Ramsey’s progress at England’s helm. Their starting line-up was: Yashin (USSR); Santos (Brazil), Schnellinger (West Germany); Pluskal, Popluhar and Masopust (all Czechoslovakia); Kopa (France), Law (Scotland), Di Stefano (Spain), Eusebio (Portugal), Gento (Spain).
It had been decided that substitutes would be allowed for this game and the Rest of the World bench was formidable in its content: namely, Puskas (Hungary/Spain), Baxter (Scotland), Seeler (West Germany), Soskic (Yugoslavia) and Eyzaguirre (Chile).
The England team comprised Banks (Leicester City); Armfield (Blackpool), Wilson (Huddersfield Town); Milne (Liverpool), Norman (Spurs), Moore (West Ham); Paine (Southampton), Greaves and Smith (both Spurs), Eastham (Arsenal), Charlton (Manchester United). (If evidence were ever needed of how much the English game has changed, it’s there in that England line-up, which contained top quality internationals from Blackpool, Huddersfield Town and Southampton.)
The game was in keeping with the occasion. It produced a feast of football and was a personal triumph for Jimmy Greaves, who in such illustrious company showed that he too was a world-class player. All the goals came in the last twenty minutes. Terry Paine gave us the lead, only for Denis Law to combine with Puskas and Di Stefano before sliding the ball under my legs as I came out to cut down the angle. Jimmy Greaves wrapped the game up for England with seven minutes remaining. Milutin Soskic, who had replaced Yashin for the second half, could only parry a thunderbolt from Bobby Charlton and in nipped Jimmy to score a typical poacher’s goal. Jimmy had an even better goal disallowed by the referee, who gave us a free kick following a foul on Jimmy rather than play the advantage rule. Jimmy felt that he had the Scottish referee against him as well as the Rest of the World.