The day they stole the World Cup in England

 The day they stole the World Cup in England.

It hardly seems believable now, but the football World Cup was once stolen in England because, quite clearly, we would never have won the 1966 World Cup without it. Suddenly in March 1966, one of the most highly coveted footballing trophies in the world the World Cup went missing. We knew how consumed with envy other supposedly lesser nations than England would have been at the time and, perhaps mischievously, Scotland were just delighted, nay less thrilled since their old Hadrian's wall rivals were about to conquer the world in the July of that year.

Last night in Channel 5's excellent documentary on the day they stole the World Cup, the whole bizarre story of how they nicked the Jules Rimet Cup was superbly highlighted in extensive detail. The black and white images and extraordinary mysteries that surrounded the great heist emphasised the often amusing nature of what exactly happened. None of us could have script written the initial shock of discovering why the trophy had been pilfered in the first place. In retrospect, it now seems both hilarious and farcical but at the time the whole of England must have been desperately worried about the World Cup's disappearance.

Here was a trophy that England boss Sir Alf Ramsey had promised his nation would win quite easily if truth be told. Besides, England had invented the Beautiful Game and it was about time that England won it for a change. England had been reluctant participants in 1950, the first World Cup after Second World War hostilities and of course we could string a couple of passes together and we could score goals so what was the problem? So the time was right and a nation held its bated breath. What could go wrong? Well, it did for a while but then the fault was rectified eventually.

One day in early March 1966 at a Stanley Gibbons stamp exhibition in London, a beautifully polished World Cup, proudly standing on a shelf, was there one minute and gone the next. During the night, in a carefully rehearsed, hush, hush and clandestine operation, the trophy was sneakily smuggled out of the hall during the night and by the following morning we were aghast. It was gone, lost. Somebody would have to be summoned to find the World Cup and that became one of the most drawn out, lengthy and protracted episodes of police work and almost indefinite investigation in the force's history. Perhaps England feared they'd never win anything ever again.

But the focal point of everybody's attention and the basic premise for last night's programme was the identity of the troublemaker, the hoodlum, the hardened criminal. It is at this point that we should introduce one Dave Corbett into the story. Our friendly Mr Corbett just happened to be taking his dog Pickles for a walk one day and, quite innocently minding his business. Perhaps he was checking on the first tulips of the spring or just whistling the latest Beatles masterpiece. But then it all happened. 

In the heart of deepest South London suburbia, Pickles started dragging our Dave over to a tangle of bushes desperately scrambling, scuffling, furiously pawing away at some mysterious shiny object. So Mr Corbett, ever ready to satisfy everybody's curiosity, bent down and helped his canine friend. After unwrapping the bag in which the World Cup had been hidden away in, Corbett confirmed that indeed it was the most famous sporting trophy in the world.

For the next couple of months leading up to the 1966 World Cup, the police pursued every angle, every avenue of possibility, every suspicious suspect who had now sent the police into a frantic search for the evil perpetrators. In deepest Camberwell, South London, the streets were alive with gang warfare, gangsterism and armed bank robberies masterminded by inveterate criminals. Huge council estates were broken into, questions were asked on a monumental scale and we just wanted to get to the bottom of why and who would have the audacity to rob the country of a trophy we thought we might just win?

And then poor Dave Corbett was drawn into this moment of madness. Now it was that accusing fingers were horribly pointed at Corbett and his trusty dog Pickles. How could a dog possibly steal anything let alone a silver trophy that was so valuable as to be positively priceless? And then the swinging prison cell bulb had now metaphorically led us to believe that it could only be Corbett because, after all he and his dog had found the World Cup so we'd like to detain you Mr Corbett for our enquiries.  

Finally after intensive foraging and secretive break ins to flats and residences in South London, the police found their men and cuffed them immediately. One Sidney Cugullere and brother Reg, notorious 1960s gangsters, thought it would be a jolly good idea to unlock the keys into the hall where the World Cup was hidden and then quietly remove it before taking it home like naughty schoolchildren pinching jars of sweets. At first we were never quite sure why the two shifty brothers had committed this dastardly deed. But fifteen minutes of fame and front- page celebrity had to be a necessity since a World Cup concealed in a family living room would never be considered as the first line of thinking.

But everything turned out to be happily ever after although as last night's programme revealed, the silver World Cup trophy was quickly swopped once again for a replica. At the end we were told that the Jules Rimet Cup as held aloft by goalkeeper Gordon Banks at the Kensington Garden Hotel balcony was not the real thing although by now most of us were just baffled at the lightning fast turn of events. 

This weekend the current generation of England's World Cup protagonists will step onto the stage of a World Cup that has now been stained by sinister allegations and dark rumours. Qatar was not the country we were hoping for when the candidates were announced for hosting the tournament. The country is riddled with funny money, deviousness and duplicity, the kind of egregious publicity that no country would have wanted had they been chosen as a potential venue. You can smell the poisonous fumes even now.

But on a far distant day at the end of March 1966, England panicked, wiping the sweat from apprehensive foreheads and so concerned about its immediate future as World Cup hosts that maybe they'd have to scrap the whole idea. Fortunately though it all turned out for Sir Alf Ramsey and his courageous, doughty warriors. Bobby Moore, Jack and Bobby Charlton and Nobby Stiles all ventured out from their Hendon Hall hotel headquarters for a morning's window shopping in Golders Green, Nobby Stiles paid a visit to a local church for a very private confessional and the World Cup had been returned to its rightful owners. England would indeed become World Champions. And it was their trophy. Nobody could take that one away.