England ‘66 hero answers the question all football fans ask...
WORLD Cup-winning legend Sir Geoff Hurst, the scorer of football’s most famous hat-trick, knew what at least one of my questions would be when we spoke yesterday morning.
‘Was the second goal over the line?’ he nodded.
‘In my theatre shows I talk about my life and career in the first half and do a Q&A after the interval. But now I will always cover that one question in the first half, because it always comes up.’
If the goal that put England 3-2 up in the final against West Germany had been scored today, it would have of course been checked by VAR, an innovation that Sir Geoff dislikes.
‘I absolutely hate it. I like goalline technology, which would have helped in 1966, but other than that I don’t think VARs been good for the game,’ he said. ‘It’s inaccurate. They’re making as many mistakes now as in the past. The goal goes in, players can’t celebrate, fans can’t celebrate. It takes 10 minutes to make a decision.’
Sir Geoff came to the island as part of a new business club innovation, the Sporting Club, run by journalist, author and broadcaster Ian Stafford.
He said he been to the island at least once before, back in the summer of 2004 when he visited Beau Sejour, but it had not left its mark on him, he admitted.
‘The only person who would know whether I’ve been here or not in the last 60 years would be my wife,’ he said. ‘And I asked her yesterday, and she said she wasn’t sure. We’ve just had time for a short drive around, and it looks very beautiful.’
It’s now 59 ‘years of hurt’ since Sir Geoff and his teammates lifted the World Cup at Wembley but he said it would not surprise him if England triumphed in the tournament in the USA next year.
‘I know how difficult it is, and you would have thought we would have won it once or twice in the past 60 years, being a major footballer nation, but we’ve got now the best bunch of young players we have had for some time.’
German Thomas Tuchel is taking charge of the team, though Sir Geoff, who played under Sir Alf Ramsey in 1966, said he was not particularly a great fan of foreign managers.
‘But it boils down to this, if he does a great job, and we win, absolutely fantastic choice. However, if we get stuffed, it was a waste of time to have a foreign manager.’
And was it over the line?
‘Of course it was! The ref blew his whistle and pointed to halfway. Just look at the score.’
