Listen Now: Foul Play
6/15/20267 min
Ed is the grandson of footballing legend Gordon Banks. He was a national icon, the only goalkeeper ever to win the soccer World Cup for England. But Ed’s heard a rumour: that in 1970, while defending the title, his granddad, his hero, was poisoned… by the CIA. All part of a Cold War plot to bolster a military dictatorship in Latin America, supposedly. Could this possibly be true? Banks did get ill in Mexico in 1970 with food poisoning. And England crashed out, marking the start of decades of hurt. Ed enlists the help of investigative journalist Gabriel Gatehouse. Together they embark on a journey into the bewildering world of Cold War espionage, a journey that threatens to unravel 60 years of sporting history; or possibly… to knock Ed’s granddad off his pedestal.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsGabriel Gatehouse· Host0:00
Hi, I'm Gabriel Gatehouse.
Ed Jervis· Host0:01
And I'm Ed Jervis.
Gabriel Gatehouse· Host0:03
And we're about to play you a clip from Foul Play.
Ed Jervis· Host0:07
A new podcast series in which we investigate whether the CIA poisoned my granddad.
Gabriel Gatehouse· Host0:13
And possibly laid a curse on English football. It's an unbelievable tale of sport, spies, and family secrets.
Ed Jervis· Host0:23
And here's a taster.
Speaker 3· Soundbite0:26
[door opening] We'll hear the name of your grandfather, please.
Ed Jervis· Host0:34
My name's Ed, and I feel like I'm having a sort of out-of-body experience right now.
Speaker 3· Soundbite0:41
Banks, Gordon?
Ed Jervis· Host0:43
Yes.
Gabriel Gatehouse· Host0:44
Yeah.
Speaker 3· Soundbite0:44
Let me check.
Ed Jervis· Host0:45
[search engine whirring] I'm an ordinary dad of two small kids from Stoke-on-Trent in the English Midlands. I don't travel much.
Speaker 3· Soundbite0:54
They have a little secret repository. [laughs] Nobody knows.
Gabriel Gatehouse· Host1:01
[laughs] Ooh.
Ed Jervis· Host1:03
We missed this. [laughs] So it feels pretty surreal right now to be in Mexico, in an old prison, digging through the archives of the Mexican secret police.
Speaker 3· Soundbite1:13
Maybe we can find something.
Gabriel Gatehouse· Host1:17
But you're putting Gordon Banks's name into a secret database.
Ed Jervis· Host1:22
I'm here with Gabriel Gatehouse, an investigative journalist, and we're looking for evidence that more than 50 years ago,