Investigating the Mexican Secret Police Archives

Hi I'm Gabriel Gatehouse And I'm Ed Jervis And we're about to play you a clip from foul play A new podcast series in which we investigate whether the CIA poisoned my granddad and possibly curse on English football It's an unbelievable tale of sport spies and family secrets And here's a taster We hear the name of your grandfather, please. My name's Ed, and I feel like I'm having a sort of out of body experience right now Banks Gord done. Yes. Let me check I'm an ordinary dad of two small kids from Stoke on Trent in the English Midlands. I don't travel much They have a little secret repository. Nobody knows. We missed this. So it feels pretty surreal right now to be in Mexico, in old prison digging through the archives of the Mexican seecret police Maybe we can find something. But you're putting Gordon Banks' name into a secret database. I'm here with Gabriel Gethust, an investigative journalist, and we're looking for evidence that more than fifty years ago, in the summer of nineteen seventy, spies were surveilling my granddad Yes, they have photos of your grandfather. What? Yeah. Can we see? Yeah. My Grandad wasn't a secret agent. He had no links to Mexico. His name has got no business being in this archive My granddad was a football player. Maybe you call it soccer. He was quite famous actually Thanks the world's number one goalkeeper Gordon Banks, my grandad, was the manning gold in nineteen sixty six, the one and only time England have ever won the World Cup It' Some argue my granddad was the greatest goalkeeper to have ever played the game So what the hell is his photo doing in the archives of the Mexican Secret pololice They have more information. Oh my God. I know Yeah. So that other voice you hear is me. And yes, I am a serious journalist, at least I think I am I've covered wars and revolutions, stories about Russian spies. For two days in twenty eleven, a contact of mine had the body of the Libyan dictator, Colonel Gaddafi, hidden in his fridge. I've reported some crazy stories in my time But this one I've been dragged into against my better judgment Because at first sight, it seems absurd. couldouldn't have happened Unless Dad In which case, it might just be the craziest story I've ever heard It all started three years ago, when a stranger comes up to me. You're Gabriel Gatehouse, aren't you? he says, I loved your podcast. This happens to me from time to time, ever since I did a series about conspiracy theories in America. Thanks, I say, Who are you? It's me, Ed. I tell Gabriel, I've got a story for him about football. Let me stop you right there. I say, I'm not into football. I don't know anything about it But Ed won't let it go. Have you heard of Cordon Banks? he asks Gordon Banks. An trophy for his sidebard. John Mahoney the substitute. goalkeeper, right? National hero from a bygone age. when the England men's football team still won things. Yeah Even I've heard of Gordon Banks So Ed starts telling me this story about his famous granddad and the World Cup, but not nineteen sixty six, the one we won, No the next one in Mexico in nineteen seventy England with the defending Champions, Ed says. One of the favorites to win But grandad fellll Food poisoning apparently, Gordon Banks was too sick to play. He recovered a few days later, but England crashed out, and English football was never the same again We didn't even qualify for another World Cup for another twelve years. And even then it seemed like a curse had been laid on the national team. We're talking about the men's team here. The women are doing just fine Anyway, Ed says his granddad always suspected his illness was no accident I was nobled, he'd say He thought someone had got to him all those years ago So who or how To his dying day, he never knew Ed never really took it seriously. We would just sort of laugh it off and kind of, o yeah, all right, granddad won too many tacos for some dodgy street vendor or whatever it was. But after Gordon Banks's death, Fed says Someone tells him Your granddad poisoned to sabotage England And the plot was masterminded by the CIA The CIA I may not know much about football do know about conspiracy theories and this looks like a classic I mean, why would the CIA want to poison an English footballer Something about the Cold War and supporting a military dictatorship in Brazil, it said It sounded kind of ridiculous I told him I'd look into it, thinking I'll debunk this straight away Well Three years later Here I am And the deeper I dig The stranger it gets G Follow Foul playlay on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcast You can binge all episodes of foul play early and ad free right now by joining Audible in the Audible app or on Apple podcasts.