BBC SPORT | FOOTBALL | Hancock's piece of history

By BBC Sport Online's Adrian Harte

TV personality Nick Hancock has revealed that his love of Stoke City motivated his decision to purchase Gordon Banks's blue World Cup 1970 international cap for �8,225.

Hancock, who presents BBC One sports panel game "They Think it's All Over", secured the cap at sale of football memorabilia at Christie's auction house in London.

Banks was awarded the cap for the matches against Romania, Germany and Brazil - against whom he made a brilliant one-handed save to deny Pele.

Hancock joked that he had not intended to buy anything at the auction: "I only popped out to buy some fags."

Banks in action for Stoke
Banks is a Stoke City legend
"Gordon Banks was at Stoke at the time and I love Stoke," he told BBC Sport Online..

"It's nice to know that for that match for which everyone remembers that save if you look at the team sheet next to his name it says Stoke City.

"So it's nice to take it back to the city and not see it sold off somewhere else.

"If the club are interested in borrowing it off me I'll be happy to lend it to them."

Hancock revealed that he had went to school in Stoke with Banks's daughter Wendy and meeting her at the auction had "strengthened his resolve" to buy the cap.

He added: "I've met Gordon Banks. We've done several sporting dinners and things together in the Stoke-on-Trent area over the years, but I wouldn't say that we were great friends."


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