Pickles Latest

Five years on from Picklefest – an event I reported on here – I was delighted to learn that Pickles, the canine hero who found the stolen World Cup, has now been honoured with a plaque, attached to a tree at the spot where he found the 'not very World Cuppy' trophy in 1966.
 One Adam Thoroughgood of East Dulwich was moved to order the plaque while watching the last World Cup on TV back in June. 'It seemed like the right thing to do, with football coming home and all that,' he recalls. 'It only arrived this month.' (The plaque, that is – not football.) And now it is in place, on a tree on Beulah Hill, South Norwood.
 Poor Pickles died just a year after his brush with fame. While chasing a cat, he got his choke chain caught on a tree branch, with fatal results. 'Finding out how he died a year later was tragic,' says Mr Thoroughgood. 'It was a short life, but a worthy one.'
 Pickles's collar is on display in the National Football Museum in Manchester. As for the Jules Rimet trophy, following the 1966 theft a replica was made in base metal for publicity use. Then FIFA, in a moment of madness, presented the original to Brazil in perpetuity after the 1970 World Cup. In 1983 it was stolen from the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation. Alas, there was no Brazilian Pickles to come to the rescue, and the trophy is still missing.