1966–67 Stoke City F.C. season within the next twelve months. In the summer of 1966 Waddington secured the services of former Newcastle United winger George Eastham from Arsenal for £35,000. The other was goalkeeper Gordon Banks who was snapped up for a bargain £52,000 from Leicester City in April 1967. Matt Gillies, the Leicester manager was coming under considerable pressure to play his young reserve Peter Shilton and decided to sell the 29-year-old Banks to Stoke. It is widely considered that this was a 'steal' as Banks carried on to play for England for another five years. Banks left English football in 1972 and ironically
Peter Shilton deal for 39-year-old Les Sealey. His thousandth League game came on 22 December 1996, against Brighton & Hove Albion, which was screened live on Sky Sports and was preceded by the presentation from the Football League of a special edition of the "Guinness Book of Records" to Shilton. He played five more matches before retiring on 1,005 league games at the age of 47 at the end of the 1996–97 season. By the time of his retirement, he was the fifth oldest player ever to have played in the Football League or Premier League. Shilton recovered from financial troubles caused