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Flake News Center > Mystery of Moore and bracelet taken to grave
Silver Flake News
Mystery of Moore and bracelet taken to grave
By John Goodbody
THE death of Peter Osgood means that another witness has gone
to his grave without illuminating one of football’s
biggest mysteries.
Osgood was believed to have been in the vicinity of the jewellery
shop in Bogotá in 1970, when a £600 diamond and
emerald bracelet was stolen. Bobby Moore, the England captain,
was arrested for questioning in Colombia while England flew
to Mexico for the World Cup finals. He rejoined the party
four days later, only after the intervention of Harold Wilson,
the Prime Minister.
It was revealed only in 2002 that Moore, who repeatedly
protested his innocence, had been advised by government officials
“to lie very low indeed” for two years to avoid
provoking a prosecution. In 1972, a Colombian judge finally
ruled that the player had no case to answer.
However, in his biography of Moore, Jeff Powell, the sports
journalist, said that the former England captain had hinted
to him before his death in 1993 “that perhaps one of
the younger lads with the squad did something foolish, a prank
with unfortunate circumstances”.
In a television documentary four years ago, Powell claimed
that Moore had told him the full story, but only after exacting
the promise that he would never reveal it.
In his autobiography, Ossie: King of Stamford Bridge, the
former Chelsea player makes a joking reference to the incident,
saying that he had a bracelet in a drawer, having been given
it by Moore.
The mystery deepened further three years ago, when documents
released by the Public Record Office, now known as the National
Archives, said that the British Embassy was told within weeks
of the allegations against Moore that the police knew that
the thief was a woman and the bracelet had been “hawked
round the underworld”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,27-2065377,00.html
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