For fans, the World Cup trophy represents the holy grail of football.
So the thought of a priceless artefact going missing sounds rather insane.
Even more shocking is the claim that it was later found by a dog!
Did this really happen?
VERDICT:
TRUE
A dog named Pickles became an unlikely hero in football history after helping recover the stolen World Cup trophy in 1966, just a few months before England hosted the tournament.
Before it was called the FIFA World Cup, the trophy, known as the Jules Rimet Cup, was being displayed at a public exhibition in London when it mysteriously disappeared on March 20, 1966.
Valued at £3,000 at the time (around £72,544.50 or RM395,528.50 today), the cup was the centrepiece of the exhibition, displayed with rare stamps worth around £3mil—making the theft a major security crisis.
Despite a large-scale police investigation, the trophy remained missing. A ransom note was later sent demanding payment for its return, but the trail eventually went cold.
However, a week after the theft, Pickles, a Collie-mix dog, stumbled upon the missing trophy while out on a stroll with his owner, David Corbett, in south London.
The cup was found wrapped in a newspaper and hidden under a hedge near Corbett’s home.
It was believed the thief abandoned the trophy after realising police were closing in. After Corbett reported the discovery, Pickles quickly became a national hero.
The dog was even invited to the celebrations after England won over West Germany in the final of the 1966 FIFA World Cup, becoming one of Britain’s most famous dogs.
REFERENCES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
