People say we don't want ENGLAND TO WIN AGAIN ...what total nonsense!
As England’s World Cup heroes gather after another colossal tournament failure, Geoff Hurst reveals how desperate they are to lose tag as a country’s only winners
ALMOST every day someone will stop Geoff Hurst on the street and want to talk to him about a football match which took place at Wembley Stadium 50 years ago. And invariably he will take time, pose for photos and engage in small talk about whether the ball was or wasn’t over the line.
Occasionally the conversation will move on and someone will suggest that it would be better for him that England never win the World Cup again or, indeed, any major tournament. And it is undoubtedly true that, with every passing year of failure, the achievement of Hurst and the 1966 team grows ever more momentous.
Yet the suggestion annoys him. And to put people right in future, he may well direct them to his wife of 42 years, Judith.
‘Obviously she sits with me and occasionally watches matches, not just England but West Ham and so on,’ says Hurst. ‘Against Iceland last month, I didn’t realise how animated I was until after the game. And then she said: “I’ve never seen you so frustrated and shouting at the screen so often in 90 minutes”.
‘I do get upset and annoyed. Because you want England to do well. And I felt, going into it, like everybody else did: quite buoyant and quite positive about it. It was a good, young team who performed well at their clubs all year. It’s hugely disappointing if you’re an England fan.
‘I think when we won it, the general feeling was the World Cup was fantastic and we’ll have some more of this. But we’re 50 years on and we haven’t done it. And there are those one or two cynics who say to me; “You don’t want England to win again. You don’t want anybody to score three in a final”. But it’s absolute nonsense.’
The rawness of the emotion is still evident and surely enough to convince most that this is not a man jealously guarding his own achievements to diminish a younger generation. Hurst is old enough and wise enough to know that a game of football is a glorious triviality of no huge significance in the greater scheme of life. Yet it still irks him; still upsets him, just as it does so many English fans..
‘Iceland was an astonishing game,’ he laments. ‘It’s hard to describe. OK, you can use the words poor, shocking, but it was astonishing how inept we were. You can pick out all the players, but Wayne Rooney, our most experienced player, the best player we’ve had in 10 years, not trapping and mis-controlling the ball. And that reflected how all the team were.
‘To take a free-kick into a group of players on the edge of a penalty area, knock it 30, 40, 50 yards into a group of players, is probably for anybody one of the easiest things you should be able to do at any level of football. We were taking free-kicks and they were going past the goal into row Z. It was one of those unbelievable occasions
really. It’s hard to describe. I found it just astonishing how it panned out.’
He might be any England fan when he talks like that. But this is the man, now 74, who defined July 30, 1966, and the sheer joy and youthful optimism it enveloped in the midst of that exuberant decade.
This week will bring the sense of frustration to a zenith, but hopefully also an appropriate degree of celebration.
On Saturday it will be 50 years to the day since Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick at Wembley, when the Queen handed the tiny Jules Rimet trophy to Bobby Moore and Kenneth Wolstenholme uttered the words: ‘It’s only 12 inches high … solid gold … and it means England are the world champions.’
As Hurst speaks he is looking out over the Wembley pitch bathed in glorious sunshine, much as it was 50 years ago.
‘Rain in the morning,’ recalls Hurst. ‘Then sunny in the afternoon.’ Though he never tires of the selfies, the chats with member of the public, the endless cries from across the street of ‘They think it’s all over’ — indeed he appreciates the gratitude and recognition — the disappointment of still being the only ever England team to have achieved it is difficult to avoid on such a significant anniversary. He walks past the statue of Moore outside
Wembley and says: ‘Seeing the statue reminds me that in those days they used to criticise Bobby for being a “big-game player”. You could always rely on him to bring his best form to the biggest games. I always said if there were ever a World XI picked to play Mars, Bobby would have gone to another level again. And that was a criticism; that he delivered his best form in the big games!’
He leaves the accompanying thought unspoken; if only a few more England players since had that reputation.
Fortunately, there are happier memories at Wembley, though most of them are old. There is an exhibition of memorabilia from the 1966 World Cup running to coincide with the anniversary and last week Hurst took charge of a guided tour.
‘Iconic, I’m called,’ he laughs as he reads a description of his career achievements next to his photo at the exhibition. ‘Now I’m iconic!’ He seems to find the notion a little ridiculous. ‘It was never a big thing, the hat-trick at the time,’ he says. ‘It was about winning the game. Had we lost 4-3 it wouldn’t have meant anything. I wouldn’t be standing here now.’
Reminders of how football has changed are all around. The opening of the exhibition features a depiction of a 1960s style living room, compact and with requisite period décor and a TV with a tiny screen yet a huge box behind to power it.
‘That’s about as big as the living room was in my first home was,’ says Hurst. It was a chalet bungalow in Hornchurch which cost him £5,050 and he moved in with his wife in October 1964, having just been married, their honeymoon having been one night at an east London motel.
At that time he was already a successful footballer with West Ham in the First Division, the equivalent of the Premier League, having won the FA Cup the previous May and scored in the final.
‘Of all the really nice houses I’ve owned ever since, nothing quite gives you the same feeling as owning your first home just after you’re married.’
He alights on photos of the squad enjoying a day out at Pinewood film studios. It
reeks of Sixties chic. Sean Connery, imposimmy sibly smooth, and Jimmy Greaves chat; actress Viviane Ventura, wearing a de rigueur mini dress, laughs with Gordon Banks. Most of the players are enjoying a glass of wine; back-up goalkeeper Ron Springett clutches a cigarette.
What is instructive is Hurst’s memory that this came immediately after the desting perately disappointing opening match against Uruguay, a 0-0 draw at Wembley. 'We were booed off the pitch,’ he recalls. ‘I saw it again the other day and I hadn’t realised how noisy the booing was! What Alf Ramsey cleverly did, because we were under a bit of pressure, was take us to Pinewood for the day
And he chuckles as to what reaction an under-performing England side might receive today if they enjoyed a day off involving alcohol mid-tournament.
As for the cigarettes, he can top Sprinmmy gett’s faux pas. ‘Jimmy Greaves told a lovely story at an event he was doing with me and Gordon Banks. We were asked what’s the most important piece of inforved mation we ever received at half time from Alf? Gordon and I answered the question and it came to Jimmy and he said: ‘One of my early games under Alf Ramsey, we came in at half time and he said: “Jimmy! Put your fag out!”’
They were simpler times not least in the winning of international matches in major tournaments. Sir Geoff doesn’t have the answer as to why England players consistthough ently underperform, he does feel
I felt positive about the Euros, like everyone, but against Iceland it was astonishing how inept we were
that an Englishman is the man best suited to sorting out the performance impasse.
‘I’ve changed my mind on that,’ he says. ‘Before Sven Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello, I thought ‘‘Get the best man for the job’’. But it wasn’t any better paying more money. Communication is such a big part of the boss telling his workers what’s expected. They have to be very clear.’
But he recalls there was time when the FA appeared to have a plan for England.
‘When Ron Greenwood (Hurst’s coach at West Ham) took the job in 1977, he appointed Don Howe as his assistant, Bobby Robson was in charge of the B team and Terry Venables was in charge of the Under-23s. There was a plan there.’
Hurst’s point is that England have only reached two tournament semi-finals since 1966; in 1990, when Robson was manager and Howe coach; and 1996, when Venables was manager, with Howe as coach. ‘When we nearly won, it was as a direct result of the continuity we had from Greenwood to Robson, Howe and Venables.’
He is happy with the choice of Sam Allardyce. ‘He’s been a successful manager wherever he’s been. He wasn’t liked at West Ham because of the long ball but he got us up, then he kept us up for a couple of years with a very average team. He gave us the springboard for where we are today. In his last year, he bought three or four good players who performed. What Slaven Bilic has done is add to that.’
Certainly the manager who finally matches Alf Ramsey will be blessed in a way only a select group can comprehend.
‘The emotion when the whistle goes is one of relief that you’ve got through a tough tournament,’ he says. ‘But the enjoyment of winning a World Cup in your own country transcends the sport. It’s a national event. People still talk about it. They regularly send things to my website saying their father or mother or grandfather were doing this or doing that, and the enjoyment of it lasts forever.
‘It would be fantastic for people of today to live through what we lived through. I’m often asked: ‘‘Can we do it again?’’ The answer’s always yes. You see the teams that win the World Cup, you see the Portugal team that won the Euros. We’re as good as that on paper with the players we had. And I think we can.’