AuthorJeffEyesRimmer Being British means that the story of England winning the 1966 World Cup has been told to me on so many occasions I can’t remember. However, that famous picture of Bobby Moore lifting the Jules Rimet trophy would have been quite different if it were not for Pickles. No, not the food but a dog named Pickles! So how did a black and white collie save the World Cup? Before the 1966 World Cup had begun the trophy was on display in the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster. On the second day it was on display the trophy was stolen from the display case. At the time five guards were stationed to guard the trophy. On the day of the theft though one of the guards had called in sick and the other four decided to have coffee all together. So no one was actually guarding the trophy. One of the guards was also 74.
So the security was slightly inadequate from the start really. The trophy was thought to have been stolen during this time by two people who broke in through the emergency exit. This all happened three months before the World Cup was about to start! Hardly the best preparation. Scotland Yard took over but witness reports were conflicting and they had little to go on. Then there was a spark of hope of recovering the trophy. A man calling himself ‘Jackson’ rang the then Chelsea and FA chairman Joe Mears and told him to expect a parcel the following day. Sure enough a parcel came the next day with a portion of the trophy inside and demands of a ransom. The ransom seems tiny now, £15,000, but that’s about £450,000 now. It’s still a small amount in the current football climate but still a lot of money to most of the football going public. Mears agreed to pay the sum but ignored the warning that came with the note not to tell the police. The exchange was arranged but the operation went wrong and although they caught ‘Jackson’ he had ditched the trophy when he tried to evade the police. Although they had caught the thief, one Edward Betchley, a 46-year-old former soldier who said he was just the middle man, the trophy was nowhere to be found. Deals were attempted with Betchley but to no avail. Betchley was eventually convicted for demanding money, and sentenced to two years imprisonment. The second person was never caught, if there was ever a second person. Then up stepped Pickles! On the 27th March, just seven days after the trophy was stolen, Dave Corbett left his flat in South London to walk his dog. Pickles had been let of the lead and was making a fuss around a neighbours car. When Corbett went to investigate and put his dog on the lead he found a brown paper bag. Corbett said when finding the package: ‘’I tore a bit off the bottom and there was a blank shield, then there were the words Brazil, West Germany and Uruguay printed. I tore off the other end and it was a lady holding a very shallow dish above her head. I'd seen the pictures of the World Cup in the papers and on TV so my heart started thumping’’ Corbett turned the trophy in and initially was the number one suspect, even questioned at Scotland Yard before being cleared of any wrong doing. Once cleared Corbett did get attention from the world’s media but the real star was Pickles. He starred in a feature film, The Spy with the Cold Nose, with Eric Sykes and appeared on Magpie, Blue Peter and many other TV shows. He was made Dog of the Year, Italian Dog of the Year (why we don’t know), awarded a year's free supply of food from Spillers and there were offers to visit Chile, Czechoslovakia and Germany. When England won that famous final both Corbett and Pickles were invited along to the entrance party. All the England players made a fuss of Pickles and had photos taken. The little collie saved the world cup. Unfortunately the trophy that Pickles found didn’t want to stay that way. After the trophy was gifted permanently to Brazil after the 1970 FIFA World Cup it was stolen from the headquarters of Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro in December 1983 and never recovered. There are still questions marks around whether Betchley was the lone thief or whether there was an accomplice. Betchley died in 1969 but his daughter has stated that the legal documents around that time show there’s a twist to all this. Maybe one day it will all come out. But until then, lets all be thankful that Pickles was around to save a World Cup. Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickles_(dog)#/media/File:Pickles_dog.jpg |
AuthorsJust Some Fans Writing About Football. Archives
June 2018
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