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Gordon Banks


Stickman
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10 minutes ago, El Rojo said:

RIP. Could watch that amazing save all day.

We very nearly had the chance on a weekly basis..

 

Banks was a Leicester City player when England won in 1966 - but the following year with Peter Shilton emerging, the club decided to sell their World Cup winner. Liverpool were rumoured to be interested but would not meet the £50,000 asking price. In the end he joined Stoke and remained there until he retired from professional football in 1973. Banks had lost the sight in his right eye after a car crash in October 1972.

When Leicester put me up for sale I saw Roger Hunt at an international match. He said: "Don't sign for anybody - Bill Shankly is coming for you."

I thought to myself "that'll do for me". Liverpool had been a top side for a number of years.

I sat and waited and the weeks went by and I thought they were supposed to be coming for me.

I thought I was worth £50,000. I'd been at Leicester for eight years and played in five cup finals - two League Cup finals, two FA Cup finals and a World Cup final.

Eventually the manager at Leicester came up to me and said Stoke are interested and would I like to speak to them.

I was about 28, I was at my peak and Leicester had put me up for sale. I honestly could not get away fast enough and play for a club that wanted me. So I signed for Stoke.

 

 

My dad said he's never seen a better goalkeeping display than when Leicester beat us in the cup semi final in 1963 1-0 .

Liverpool absolutely hammered them but he just saved everything, after it he thought we are never going to win that f**king cup.

It's the game with the famous picture of St John looking totally gutted and Banks grinning

 

Image result for liverpool v leicester 1963 cup semi ian stjohn

 

 

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Best goalkeeper ever in my opinion. He certainly performed whenever he came to Anfield. When he came to Anfield with Leicester for the league game the season following the semi-final, and that picture, he was bombarded with shite and abuse from the Kop when he took up his place for the second half. Then he played an absolute blinder of a game. 

 

Shankly actually said that Leicester were the only team he learned from when we came up from division two. They would pack their defence, snatch a goal on a break and then let us bombard them. If you got beyond their massed defence you then had Banks to beat. One save from that 64 league game has lived with me forever. We were one down to a Ken Keyworth goal and were all over the fuckers. Jimmy Melia caught the ball lperfectly on the edge of the area and twatted it. Banks went full length across the goal, parallel to the ground,  and didn't just save the shot by putting around the post or back out into play, he held the fucker!

 

The Kop respected him from that day on. He was the greatest. Clemence ran him a close second in an era of some brilliant goalkeepers but Banks was something else. 

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I was at Gerry Byrne's testimonial and when he came to defend the Kop second half he was serenaded with "we want you for our own" shame it never happened. He also applauded to if you all love Koppites clap your hands or some such.

Truly a reminder of how great players could overcome tribal rivalries and how they were the same as us, ordinary blokes, just gifted with talent we could only dream of.  RIP

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10 hours ago, Stickman said:

We very nearly had the chance on a weekly basis..

 

Banks was a Leicester City player when England won in 1966 - but the following year with Peter Shilton emerging, the club decided to sell their World Cup winner. Liverpool were rumoured to be interested but would not meet the £50,000 asking price. In the end he joined Stoke and remained there until he retired from professional football in 1973. Banks had lost the sight in his right eye after a car crash in October 1972.

When Leicester put me up for sale I saw Roger Hunt at an international match. He said: "Don't sign for anybody - Bill Shankly is coming for you."

I thought to myself "that'll do for me". Liverpool had been a top side for a number of years.

I sat and waited and the weeks went by and I thought they were supposed to be coming for me.

I thought I was worth £50,000. I'd been at Leicester for eight years and played in five cup finals - two League Cup finals, two FA Cup finals and a World Cup final.

Eventually the manager at Leicester came up to me and said Stoke are interested and would I like to speak to them.

I was about 28, I was at my peak and Leicester had put me up for sale. I honestly could not get away fast enough and play for a club that wanted me. So I signed for Stoke.

 

 

My dad said he's never seen a better goalkeeping display than when Leicester beat us in the cup semi final in 1963 1-0 .

Liverpool absolutely hammered them but he just saved everything, after it he thought we are never going to win that f**king cup.

It's the game with the famous picture of St John looking totally gutted and Banks grinning

 

Image result for liverpool v leicester 1963 cup semi ian stjohn

 

 

Is that Frank McClintock next to Banks ? 

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One of my heroes when I was growing up, I actually fractured my collar bone at the tender age of 5 copying one of his flying saves.  I only wanted to be a goalkeeper because of him, I absolutely idolised him.

A class of his own as a player, and by all accounts as a man too.

Genuinely saddened tonight by this news, the term legend is used far too commonly these days, but Banks personifies it completely.

 

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