How Bobby Moore DID nick that bracelet

E

equaliser

Well-known member
Now, here's a fine one. All I remember of this story was that it was always presented as England's lionheart, our honorable butter-wouldn't-melt World Cup winning captain had been framed by know-nothing d**os.

Looking back, we can see not only how it was vital this (entirely false) narrative was furiously promoted but how the reason - Brititsh exceptionalism - while it takes different forms, still holds sway across media and society. And so important was it (is it), that a woman's life was pretty much ruined for a downright lie.

You can take the (barra)-boy out of the East End...
 
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When we were in Sri Lanka for the cricket there was a sticker on the toilet wall warning of crime. It said WATCH OUT FOR PICKPOCKETS or something and the picture on the sticker was Bobby Moore.
 
So he got two young players to distract her but she was watching him all time and he was looking at her watching him
Seems a bit made up
 
Who knows. The thought of Bobby Charlton flirting with a Colombian shopgirl to distract her is too fanciful for it to be remotely true. There was a conspiracy to upset the England camp and it someways it backfired as Moore played a blinder against Brazil a few weeks later.
 
McMordie said:
I feel sorry for the woman if she was made the fall guy over the Bobby Moore incident but wasn't it her who falsely accused Boro of not turning up for a match at Blackburn in 1996?
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The story I heard from my reliable ITK source was that we did turn up at Blackburn but that the players refused to enter the ground after the Columbian woman accused Emerson of nicking a cheeseburger from one of the vans in the car park. Emerson was so upset by the incident that he went AWOL.

The alternative version I've heard is that the cheeseburger was planted on Emerson by Barcelona, partly to unsettle him and partly as retaliation because they'd been offended when Keith Lamb referred to them as a "so-called" big club when he thought they were tapping up Emerson. They considered themselves to be indisputably a big club.
 
I’m not sure that the article cited by the OP actually comes out and says that Bobby did it, but it does suggest that there is more to the story than was apparent at the time.

I remember it well. We all felt that it was obviously a set-up intended to damage England’s chances of retaining the World Cup. It was all lies told by dastardly foreigners who would stop at nothing to discredit our glorious Bobby – a fine, upstanding Englishman who would never stoop to stealing.

However, for me, there are some elements of the story that give rise to doubt as to what actually happened. For a start, it doesn’t seem likely that there would have been a plan in place specifically to discredit the English footballers. The shop owner wasn’t even there when they entered the shop, which they did by pure chance. The shop assistant probably wouldn’t have known who they were, but... she would have needed to have made up the whole detailed story of what actually happened herself and I question why she would do that. I’ve never worked in a jeweller’s, but I suspect that accusing random customers of stealing probably isn’t the best way to advance your career. The shop owner was also staking the reputation of his shop. Other elements include the fact that Bobby Moore seems to have told his biographer an alternative version of events and also the fact that there was a third England player who has never been identified. If nothing happened, what’s the problem with him coming forward?

It's an interesting one, and very much of its time. But with all the protagonists now dead, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the truth.
 
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