On the 58th anniversary of the day his hat-trick helped England defeat West Germany to win the FIFA World Cup, Sir Geoff Hurst recounts his history-making summer of 1966...
Skating to success
Forest Gate roller-skating rink was a million miles away from Wembley, as I trained with my West Ham United teammates ahead of our festive fixtures spanning Christmas 1965. But halfway through the session, manager Ron Greenwood waved me over. ‘You’ve been called into the England squad for the Poland game,’ he said. It was a fairy-tale. I never dreamed that I’d ever get the chance to represent my country and, although I didn’t get to play in that one, I was called up for February’s friendly, ironically, against West Germany (1-0) at Wembley, where I only had an average England debut.
Looking back now at my scoring record and, given we’d come to prominence with our FA Cup and European Cup Winners’ Cup victories, perhaps that should’ve arrived earlier? I was then picked against Scotland at Hampden Park in early April. Always a big, big game, it was the most intimidating, testing international you could get. This time, I played well, scoring one against future Hammer Bobby Ferguson and making another in our 4-3 win.
Then, in early May, we beat Yugoslavia (2-0) as Martin Peters now won his first cap, too. I scored 40 goals in 59 games for West Ham in 1965/66 and it was great to be called up for Sir Alf Ramsey’s provisional World Cup get-together, alongside Bobby Moore and Martin. Alf cleverly took 27 players to Lilleshall knowing five would have to drop out. Martin and myself just didn’t know whether we’d be in his final 22. It was a tense three weeks and not even our Club skipper, Bobby, could give any indications. Because I was a newcomer, I doubted whether I’d make it, even though I was probably the country’s most in-form striker with those 40 goals. I just didn’t realise I was good enough to be in that final 22 and, in the end, was absolutely thrilled when I was handed the No10 shirt.
Don't Cry for Me Argentina
I didn’t play well on our final warm-up tour of Scandinavia and was left out of our opening Group One games against Uruguay (0-0), Mexico (2-0) and France (2-0).
Alf started with Roger Hunt and future Hammer Jimmy Greaves, but I was in dreamland just being in the squad itself. It’d been an honour to be regarded as one of the best 22 footballers in the country and after my performances in Finland and Denmark, I didn’t deserve to be picked anyway! ‘I’m just lucky to be here,’ I thought as I looked around our Hendon Hall Hotel training HQ.
With three goals, Roger was scoring, but Jimmy wasn’t – following debilitating hepatitis sadly he wasn’t at his sharpest and he’d also picked up a shin injury. With England facing Argentina in the last eight, Alf ended his training session and called us into the centre-circle, where he now named his team.
Walking away knowing I was in the quarter-final starting line-up, I told myself: ‘My time’s arrived.’ Argentina were tough but they also had seven or eight superb players, albeit they were more concerned with knocking people around than playing the way they could.
Skipper Antionio Rattin was a great playmaker and if we’d have wanted anyone in the Argentina team to be sent-off ten minutes before half-time, then it would have been their captain. I got spat at, pinched in the throat and elbowed and if I’d retaliated to those South American tactics, it would’ve been: ‘Goodbye. Lose game.’ Thankfully, I just wasn’t a volatile player and, on 77 minutes, it was rewarding to score the match-winner with a typical West Ham United, near-post goal, when I headed home Martin’s cross.
We were in the World Cup semi-finals.
Wembley wait
Jimmy still had no chance of making his return and I kept my place for the semi-final against Eusébio’s Portugal. Level at one-all, I set-up Bobby Charlton’s late decider in a great game which we won 2-1 to reach the final against West Germany.
Aged 24, I wasn’t aware of the tension and the pressure – still only a kid, I took it all in my stride, although I did keep trying to find out how Jimmy’s shin was during those four days leading up to the final! We trained to pass time and, with Alf enjoying a film, we’d either go to the cinema or just walk down to the Golders Green Road shops. I finally broke into the card school, too, playing for one shilling (five pence) per game. With no heavy gamblers or drinking culture, Alf had only picked the right people.
We also went to Pinewood Studios where they were filming You Only Live Twice and met James Bond – Sean Connery.
Having grown up together, it was good having Martin as a room-mate and we kept asking each other whether we’d heard anything about Saturday? Eventually, Alf told me I was starting in the final and, within seconds, I was on the telephone to my wife, Judith, breaking the good news. Next, I found out Martin had been selected, too, and we congratulated each other because things would’ve been terrible if one of us had missed out.
It was also one hell of a decision to leave out Jimmy because – at the time – he was the world’s greatest goal-scorer. With England playing in a World Cup final at Wembley he’d surely be one of the first names on the team-sheet? Jim never held it against me, while Alf didn’t get any credit for making his crunch decision, but he would’ve got absolutely slaughtered if we’d lost and I’d missed a couple…
Hat-trick hero
On the morning of the final, I awoke at 6am, unaware of the momentous day ahead of us. Without question, it was probably THE biggest-ever sporting day in this country, but there was none of today’s hype.
About 20 people saw us off from Hendon Hall and, on the coach to Wembley, everyone appeared calm. Underneath, the nerves and tension were there, but West Ham’s previous Wembley victories in the FA Cup and Cup Winners’ Cup helped me cope, as did that Scotland game at Hampden Park.
Straight from the kick-off, full-back Horst Höttges came across to mark me and I immediately reckoned I was going to have a reasonably good game. Being more at home with wingers, surely he wouldn’t be familiar marking tall centre-forwards?
The West Germans went ahead on 13 minutes but these were early days, we had five world-class players and there was a long way to go. Six minutes later, Wolfgang Overath fouled Bobby Moore, who immediately got up to take the free-kick. Being Club-mates, on the same wave-length, I knew Mooro was looking for the early one and going a split-second earlier, had the edge over Höttges and headed the equaliser past Hans Tilkowski. Elated, I was jumping up and down thinking: ‘I’ve done it!’ I’d never celebrated like that – normally, I’d just jog back to the centre-spot. These days, though, everyone would run the length of Wembley Way!
Level at half time, we simply had a drink and tightened our boot-laces. On 78 minutes, though, my shot deflected off Höttges and, with it looping towards him, Martin kept the ball down and hit the target to put us ahead. But with seconds remaining, Wolfgang Weber then made it 2-2. Alf famously told us: ‘You’ve won the World Cup once, now go and do it again!’ Going on an early extra-time run, I was physically and mentally shattered but Höttges signalled: ‘Take it easy.’ Seeing him in a worse state gave me such a boost. With 100 minutes on the clock, Alan Ball found enough energy to burst down the right and, knowing my forte was getting to the near post, he whipped in his cross. Again, Höttges wasn’t anywhere near but, having made my run marginally too early, the ball was now going behind me. I controlled it, then took a second touch. Bang! Sitting on my backside when the ball crashed down off the crossbar, I’d the worst view in the stadium. I was thinking: ‘Is it in? Or isn’t it?’ It seemed to take a lifetime until the goal was given.
I’ve always said that Roger Hunt – a predator – would’ve instinctively pounced to claim what could’ve been the World Cup winner. Instead, he wheeled away shouting: ‘It’s there!’ That’s good enough for me and I’ll never change my mind.
Then, with seconds to go, Mooro chested down in his own area. It says so much about his greatness that while Jack Charlton was screaming to get the ball out of the stadium (!), with great composure, Mooro just hit a great pass upfield. Everything now opened up in front of me and, coming within striking distance, I decided to hit it with everything I had left. If it’d gone over, it would’ve wasted precious seconds. Instead, having hit the ball on the bone of my instep, it flew in! The full-time whistle blew almost instantly and, even an hour after the game, I wasn’t sure whether it’d counted. No-one was! At the time, the hat-trick wasn’t important, it was just the winning that mattered.
'Table for Hurst'
People all over the world watched that World Cup final and, 58 years on, they still tell me exactly where they were on Saturday 30 July 1966.
Aged 82, my hat-trick in our 4-2 victory over West Germany is very significant now because it’s become a very hard record to beat and I’m very proud of my historic achievement.
As England players, we’d just spent two hours having lumps kicked out of us by the West Germans and were concentrating purely on winning the World Cup, not on what a wonderful day it was. That final had been our total focus and it was only when we went onto the balcony at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington and saw all the people below that we sensed something big had happened for the country that afternoon.
I also went to the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, where I scored against Romania, played against Pelé’s Brazil and, ironically, lost to West Germany in the quarter-finals. Martin would later argue: ‘Everyone thought we had a better side at Mexico 70 but good teams win things and we didn’t come back with the trophy. That’s why we had a better side in 1966.’
Unlike most Hammers supporters, I never say that West Ham United won the World Cup, but having provided the captain and the two goal-scorers – Bobby, Martin and myself – we certainly made a decent contribution! England can definitely win another World Cup, but I don’t think it’ll ever be done with three home-grown lads from the same team.
For me, life was never the same after winning the World Cup. As players, we got £1,000 each and a choice of Mackintosh raincoats – Martin and myself both chose white over blue (!) – plus £300 from Adidas for wearing their boots. I traded our Ford Anglia for a Morris 1100 and, moving from Hornchurch bought a £12,750 house in Chigwell, where West Ham’s vice-chairman – Len Cearns – told us that we were ‘overstepping our station’.
Before that World Cup, I’d call restaurants trying to book tables as a ‘friend of Bobby Moore’; now I could reserve them in my own name!
Having scored 24 goals along the way, I won my 49th and final cap against West Germany in a Euro 1972 qualifier and – including our Mexico 70 FIFA World Cup quarter-final defeat and an earlier friendly loss in Hannover – played five matches against them. They book-ended my international career. I played my first and last England matches against West Germany, while also having my worst-ever international against them. But, equally, on 30 July 1966, as every Englishman knows, I had my best-ever game against West Germany, too, and when you’ve scored three goals in a World Cup final you tend to be reasonably happy.
I played at a great time for English football. If someone had written the story of a World Cup final between England and West Germany, with us coming from behind, losing it in the last minute of normal time and then winning in extra-time, people would say that a fairy-tale like that couldn’t happen in football. Thankfully, it did!
