Fans line streets to pay tribute to 1966 World Cup hero Banks

STROKE-ON-TRENT, UK: Hundreds of football fans lined the streets to pay tribute to Gordon Banks on Monday as his funeral cortege was driven through Stoke, with former England teammate Geoff Hurst hailing him as a ‘superstar’.A five-car funeral cortege carrying the body of the World Cup-winning goalkeeper passed through Stoke´s stadium, stopping at the pitch side dugout for a few minutes.The various achievements of Banks, who also won the League Cup with Stoke and Leicester, were displayed on a big screen as a chant of ‘England´s number one’ broke out.Sheffield-born Banks made nearly 200 appearances for Stoke, in central England, and was named the club´s president following the death of Stanley Matthews at the turn of the century.Banks, England’s goalkeeper during their triumphant 1966 World Cup campaign on home soil,died on February 12, aged 81.He was probably best known for a wonderful save he produced to deny Brazilian great Pele in a 1970 World Cup group match.A statue erected in Banks’s honour, holding the Jules Rimet trophy aloft, was decorated with several Stoke and England scarves.The ground was adorned with shirts, flags and even goalkeeping gloves in tribute to one of the city’s favourite adopted sons.

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