Bobby Moore Really Was Innocent

This is the first post of a few that will remember the legend that was Sir Bobby Moore.

I know he wasn’t knighted when he was alive, but that was the fault of the powers that be who only realised their mistake after his passing and made up for it by giving a gong to Geoff Hurst. So why not award him a knighthood posthumously eh ?

Today though it is a look at a bit of trouble for Sir Bobby (which I’ll call him from here on it because as I said he deserved it) when just before the ’70 World Cup he was accused of nicking a bit of jewellery.

A quick reminder of the event via Wikipedia:

“1970 was a bittersweet, mixed and eventful one for Moore. He was again named as captain for the 1970 World Cup but there was heavy disruption to preparations when an attempt was made to implicate Moore in the theft of a bracelet from a jeweller in Bogotá, Colombia, where England were involved in a warm-up game. A young assistant had claimed that Moore had removed the bracelet from the hotel shop without paying for it. There was no doubt that Moore was in the shop – he had gone in with Bobby Charlton to look for a gift for Charlton’s wife, Norma – the accusation was not proved. Moore was arrested and then released, he then travelled with the England team to play another match against Ecuador in Quito. He played, winning his 80th cap, and England were 2-0 victors, but when the team plane stopped back in Colombia on the return to Mexico, Moore was detained and placed under four days of house arrest. Diplomatic pressure, plus the obvious weakness of the evidence, eventually saw the case dropped entirely, and an exonerated Moore returned to Mexico to rejoin the squad and prepare for the World Cup.”

As the article mentions was this a bit of trickery to put Sir Bobby off his game ?
Either way it didn’t work and he was cleared and as it says on this BBC – On This Day page, there were documents released in 2001 and 2003 in which the head of the Colombian police believed Moore was innocent and that the prime suspect was in fact an unnamed woman who had touted the bracelet to members of the Colombian underworld.

They never found the bracelet and never caught the woman.

This Bobby Moore website has a page with collected articles concerning the event.

A band previously mentioned on here, which I discovered thanks to an email from Al, sang about the incident:

» Serious Drinking – Bobby Moore Was Innocent (Peel Session)

and the album version…

» Serious Drinking – 12XU/Bobby Moore Was Innocent

Got anything to say? Go ahead and leave a comment!