Authors: Gordon Banks
The following year, 1980–81, we enjoyed a good pre-season. I signed John Ruggerio from Stoke City, organized friendlies against Stoke and Wolves and followed up with a satisfactory if unspectacular start to the season.
We were in mid-table in November when I took a sabbatical in order to undergo an operation. I asked the former Blackpool and Stoke City player Jackie Mudie to take temporary charge of team affairs while I was absent, satisfied that the team would be in good hands.
Unfortunately, during Jackie’s temporary period holding the reins, Telford lost an FA Trophy match to a team from a lower
league. I returned to work in December and was asked by the chairman to attend a meeting at the offices of the travel agents he owned.
‘I’m sorry, but we are relieving you of your duties as manager of this club,’ he informed me.
I was shocked. My sacking hit me hard. For a time it knocked for six all the passion and enthusiasm I had for the game. I had high hopes of taking Telford United on to bigger and better things, but felt I hadn’t been given sufficient time to achieve my aim. Time is the most important asset a manager can be given and, to my mind, I had been denied that.
I was still under contract, but the club were in no position to pay me off. I was rather naive about such matters at the time, and had no idea what my legal position was. A few days later the Telford chairman called me at home. He confirmed the fact that, such was the club’s financial position, the only way they could pay up the remainder of my contract was if I were to take up another position on the staff. I was gullible enough to believe him. My new role at the club was to stand in a small kiosk outside a supermarket and sell Telford United raffle tickets! Furthermore, he banned me from attending Telford games. I think the chairman expected me to reject my new role outright, which would have suited him fine. But out of sheer bloody mindedness I accepted his ridiculous offer and reported for duty at the kiosk the following Monday.
I sold draw tickets from that little kiosk outside the supermarket for nigh on six weeks, as much as anything so that the locals could see just how shabbily their football club had treated me. Talk about hero to zero! Many ex-supporters agreed:
‘A member of the England team that won the World Cup, the greatest goalkeeper there has ever been, selling draw tickets from this hovel? It’s a bloody disgrace, the way you’ve been treated.’
The groundswell of dissent grew, and gave me the strength not to walk away from the money I was entitled to. Eventually
public opinion in Telford swayed matters my way; well, half way at least. The chairman called me into his office and pushed a cheque across the desktop. The amount was about 50 per cent of what I was entitled to, but I had made my point. I accepted it and walked out of his office and out of football management. Ironically, the team I had largely assembled at Telford went on to enjoy considerable success, not only in non-league football, but also in the FA Cup where they performed a number of giantkilling acts.
With a short and not so sweet career in football management behind me, I turned to the world of business. A Leicester businessman with a motor dealership in the city telephoned me to discuss his plans to open a corporate hospitality company and asked if I would run it for him. We had a number of meetings and he seemed genuine enough, so I accepted his offer, which necessitated Ursula and I moving back to the Leicester area. We bought a house in Quorn and I settled down to running a business. The business wasn’t mine, but it traded off my name. I fronted the company for ten years and enjoyed it, though it wasn’t all plain sailing.
The business provided hospitality packages to almost all the major British sporting events. In the main our clients were companies, but on occasions we dealt with individual customers as well. One day one of the girls in my office received a telephone call asking for Centre Court tickets for Wimbledon. This was not a problem, but then the caller asked for something else. He said that his clients were two very rich businessmen from Saudi Arabia and, as part of the package, could we supply a couple of escort girls?
‘Er, I’ll have to get back to you on that,’ my secretary said in a fluster.
I advised her not to do anything for half an hour, then return the call and tell the mystery man that we don’t supply the sort of hospitality he had in mind.
‘If a company receptionist answers, we at least know this
unusual request has come from a potential client,’ I told her. ‘If he answers the phone himself, just hang up. Give it another half an hour, then ring him back. Tell him that Mr Banks says that this company is not an escort agency.’
She made the call. The same voice answered, so she put the phone down. After half an hour she rang again. The same man answered and she carried out my instructions to the letter.
The following Sunday, a well-known red-top newspaper carried a sensational story under a banner headline. I don’t remember the exact wording, but you know the sort of thing: ‘Strawberries and Sex on Centre Court’. I do remember the accompanying photograph, though – a telephoto-lens shot of the manager of a rival company walking down one of the aisles at the main arena at Wimbledon with two escort girls in tow, presumably searching for two non-existent Saudi clients.
I have no doubt that the whole thing had been a set-up. Fortunately, the sound principles by which we ran the business saved the company from acute embarrassment that time, but on another occasion I wasn’t so lucky.
As everyone knows, tickets for an FA Cup final are like gold dust. There are never enough to satisfy the needs of genuine supporters, and corporate hospitality companies have equal difficulty in meeting demand. So when I was offered a bunch of tickets for the 1987 Cup final by a tout, I snapped them up.
A few weeks after the match the Football Association had me up before them to explain how tickets allocated to players from a leading club had found their way into the hands of my clients. I told the hearing that I hadn’t bought the tickets direct from players, but had acquired them from a third party for the purposes of corporate hospitality. To my mind, the players who had sold their ticket allocation to the tout in the first place should also have been brought to book. The FA decreed that what I had done was a gross infringement of their rules and that I would have to accept the consequences.
I admit that I was silly to buy those tickets. I didn’t really have
a leg to stand on. All I could hope for was that the FA would give me credit for my honesty and immediate admission in deciding my punishment. I was given a seven-year ban from receiving Cup final tickets. I accepted the ban with good grace, though at the time I believed it to be somewhat harsh, with more than an element of giving me an exemplary punishment as a warning to others.
I was, by this time, working on the pools panel, a job I still do. Following the news of my ticket ban I turned up one Friday evening at the London hotel that served as our base to find that two other members of the panel, Roger Hunt and Tony Green, had mounted and framed two old Cup final tickets which they presented to me with great relish.
When the motor dealership that was the parent company of Gordon Banks Corporate Hospitality went down the pan shortly afterwards, it took a lot of my savings with it. The hospitality business ceased trading. I had invested in the finance arm of the motor dealership and lost the lot. To my eternal gratitude, Leicester City offered me a testimonial game to help me out. It was a wonderful gesture on the part of the club, and one that touched me greatly. I had a great night and it was fantastic to see so many familiar faces again. We talked about the old days and I was amazed to find that, although we had all given up the game long ago, in the ensuing years we had all become better players!
I have now worked for the pools panel for some sixteen years. The panel currently comprises my England team mate Roger Hunt, the former Blackpool and Newcastle United midfield player Tony Green and myself, together with an adjudicator. In my early days the panel also included the former referee Arthur Ellis and the former Scotland goalkeeper Ronnie Simpson. When I first joined the panel we used to meet in the Waldorf Hotel in London. The food at the Waldorf was excellent and I remember being particularly impressed by the variety of the cheeseboard – although not quite as impressed as Arthur. We had all sampled a little cheese, but large portions of Red Leicester, Cheshire,
Cheddar, Caerphilly, Lancashire and Brie remained. Suddenly Arthur Ellis asked, ‘Will anyone be wanting more cheese?’
We all politely declined. Arthur clapped his hands with delight, then produced a large plastic bag from his briefcase and proceeded to fill it with large chunks of cheese.
‘You lads don’t know what you’re missing – this is first-rate cheese. It’s all been paid for. Be a shame to leave it,’ said Arthur, oblivious to our embarrassment.
‘Waste not, want not’ was definitely Arthur’s philosophy and, judging by the size of his waist, he didn’t want for much. Whatever food remained, Arthur had it. He’d leave the Waldorf with his briefcase full of beef, chicken pieces, pork pies, tomatoes, grapes, you name it. He even wore a jacket with a deep inside pocket which he filled with slices of ham or turkey wrapped in tin foil. ‘He’s a walking Fortnum and Mason,’ said Roger Hunt one Saturday.
The jokes and leg-pulling were integral to the atmosphere of these meetings of the pools panel. During one session, Arthur Ellis announced that he was thinking of buying a grandfather clock. ‘You’ll be having the pendulum taken out, then, Arthur,’ I suggested. ‘You’ll not want the shadow it casts wearing a hole in your wallpaper!’
For a time the adjudicator of the pools panel was Lord Bath. He was a very friendly man who took his responsibilities as seriously as we did. We all became very good friends, and when Arthur Ellis’s wife died Lord Bath attended the funeral in Yorkshire with the rest of us. After the service Arthur laid on a buffet at his home. After a suitable time had elapsed to pay his respects, Lord Bath, who had travelled up north by train, asked Arthur if he could telephone for a taxi to take him to the station.
‘I’m not having you travelling in a taxi, Lord Bath,’ said Arthur. ‘I’ll sort you out for transport.’
Lord Bath thanked Arthur for his kindness. Ten minutes later Arthur was back.
‘When you’re ready, sir,’ said Arthur, and led his lordship outside to the Co-op’s hearse idling at the kerbside.
‘It’s all paid for. The driver has to pass the station, so he might as well drop you off on the way,’ said Arthur to the speechless lord.
I really enjoy my work with the pools panel. We sit every weekend to pass judgement on what we believe will be the outcome of games both here and in Australia. To accommodate the needs of television, quite a number of games are switched late from their original Saturday date to Sunday or Monday. If they were originally on the pools coupons, we must pass judgement on what we believe would have been the result. So there’s usually something for us to do even when the weather doesn’t disrupt the fixture list.
On occasions the conclusions we arrive at seemingly have repercussions far beyond their pools-points value. In 1993 we declared the outcome of a postponed game between Tranmere Rovers and Sunderland. In the end our verdict was a win for Tranmere. The following day the Sunderland manager, Malcolm Crosby, was sacked! Pure coincidence, of course, but the newspapers couldn’t resist saying that Crosby had become the only manager ever to be dismissed for losing a postponed game.
In addition to my work with the pools panel, I am still involved with the 1966 World Cup team. We often reunite to promote charitable projects, and also work together on cruise ships where we regale the holidaymakers with tales of the old days and offer our opinions on the current game. I do a little after-dinner speaking and I have become involved with a number of charities. One of these is the children’s hospice at the North Staffordshire Hospital, a cause very dear to my heart. I’ve been very lucky myself, and feel a strong need to try and give something back. It’s important to help those who are less able to help themselves.
Not only do I have a wonderful family and a fantastic career,
but I’ve also survived a number of threats to my health. I’ve had two tumours removed, the first and most serious some fifteen years ago. I had become aware of a lump in my stomach, but as it caused me no pain or discomfort I thought little of it. Ursula, however, suggested that I should see a consultant ‘just to be on the safe side’. I’m glad I did.
The consultant examined my X-rays and told me I had a large tumour that would have to be removed. Even then the serious nature of my condition didn’t register with me. As the consultant described what the operation involved, I took out my diary and began looking for some free dates.
‘What on earth are you doing, Mr Banks?’ asked the consultant. I told him I was checking in my diary to see when I would be available to come in for the operation.
‘Good God, man, this is so serious I’m going to operate straight away,’ he said. ‘Go straight home, pack a bag and get back here.’ I quietly put away my diary.
The surgeon removed a tumour the size of a melon from my stomach. Apparently, it was one of the largest he’d ever seen.
‘It’s a beauty! Throughout Britain and the USA, only thirty-two have been found bigger than this,’ he informed me with some pride.
I have to admit, I didn’t share his enthusiasm. Obviously I was very relieved to be rid of it and didn’t want to see it, let alone discuss its dubious merits. When the time came for me to leave hospital, the consultant presented me with a photograph of the tumour ‘as a keepsake’. Needless to say, that’s one snap we don’t get out of the drawer when relatives or friends come round for dinner.
My sudden exit from the Leicester business community wasn’t without its compensations. Our children had grown up and settled in North Staffordshire and Warrington. In order to be nearer to them, Ursula and I moved back to Cheshire. We now live in a village just over the Staffordshire border, some ten miles from Stoke. We’re much closer as a family and we’re very happy.