The thief who stole the almost worthless World Cup in 1966 took it on a whim after failing to nab £50million of stamps, a documentary reveals.
Sidney Cugullere, then 39, only had to remove eight screws from a door handle to get to the Jules Rimet statuette in the Methodist Central Hall, in Central London.
Cugullere had planned to steal a collection of Penny Blacks in the same exhibition on March 20, 1966.
But when he found the stamps under guard, he turned his attention to the trophy, Channel 4 documentary, '1966: Who Stole The World Cup?' reveals, on the eve of the 2022 tournament in Qatar.
Cugullere, who died aged 79 in 2005 having never been unmasked, soon realised the famous trophy could never be sold and, as a football fan, refused to melt it down.
His nephew Gary, 54, said his late dad Reg was an accomplice.
Gary, of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, said that when Sid showed Reg what he had got, his response was: “What the f*** do you think we’re gonna do with that?’”
A former close friend of Cugullere said: “He didn’t really go for it [the trophy] but there it was, what he used to call ‘the prize’. He braced himself to lift it and nearly fell backwards. He said it was so light.”
Professional thief Cugullere became Britain’s most wanted man after making the nation a laughing stock.
DI Len Buggy led the investigation. His break came when FA chairman Joe Mears was phoned by a man calling himself Jackson, seeking a £15,000 ransom.
Buggy posed as Mears’ assistant and arranged to meet “Jackson”, in fact Cugullere’s friend Ted Betchley, in Battersea Park. Betchley was arrested and jailed for two years.
Gary said: “My dad was freaking out. They realised that they had to give it back.”
On March 27, a week after the theft, David Corbett, 26, was walking his collie Pickles when the pooch spotted the wrapped trophy in Upper Norwood, South London.
Months later, in July, Bobby Moore lifted it after England beat West Germany 4-2 in the final.
Cugullere was finally revealed as the man who stole the World Cup following a Mirror probe four years ago. Gary tells the film about the moment Mirror man Louie Smith approached him: “He said, ‘Do you know anything about the World Cup?’ I burst out laughing.”
Gary said of his uncle: “He always joked that he was the first Englishman to lift the World Cup.”
At their funerals, Sid and Reg had trophy-shaped wreaths.
The statuette was stolen again from the Brazilian football HQ in 1983, and has not been seen since.
1966: Who Stole The World Cup?, Channel 4, Monday, 10pm.
