League 1966 saw Albert Henshall return to the club as chairman and England won the
World Cup, two of
Alf Ramsey's squad would sign for Stoke 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 Stoke signed Shilton as his replacement. Stoke had a fine, enterprising squad in 1966–67 and they ran up some fine results, beating eventual champions
Manchester United 3–0 as well as
Tottenham Hotspur,
Nottingham Forest,
Everton and
West Bromwich Albion all before October. However, with Stoke looking forward to a potentially great season the fans were shocked when
John Ritchie was sold to
Sheffield Wednesday for £70,000 in November 1966. Whilst Wednesday paid a lot of money for Ritchie it came as a surprise as a month before Stoke had sold unsuccessful reserve striker
John Woodward to
Aston Villa for £30,000. But Ritchie's departure was soon forgotten as the team battled on holding on to a mid-table position.
FA Cup Stoke failed to make it past the third round losing by two goals to nil against
Manchester United at
Old Trafford.
League Cup Walsall again proved to Stoke's cup bogey side beating Stoke 2–1 at
Fellows Park. ==Final league table==