Home
Register
Portal
Log in
Today marks the 70th birthday of England’s hat-trick hero in 1966 and he is being honoured by the charity Sparks, for whom he has been made a life president, at their annual Winter Ball tonight.
Hurst remains the only man to have scored three goals in a World Cup final and his exploits have made him not just a household name, but well known across the globe – whether he wants to be or not.
“Last year I went with my wife for a few days in San Diego,” he said. “It was the hotel where they filmed Some Like It Hot. I was sitting in my sunglasses at the back of a crowded bar enjoying a margarita watching people going by on the walkway as I was chatting to my wife.
“All of a sudden, a fella was stood next to me. He said, ‘You know, you look like Geoff Hurst,’ I said to him, ‘No, I’m Brian Ward’ – a name I often use.
Last year I went with my wife for a few days in San Diego
Sir Geoff Hurst
“But he was having none of it. ‘You speak with the tongue of a snake,’ he replied somewhat poetically. ‘You even sound like him.’
“So I admitted who I really was – as I always do straight away after I have had my joke. But it struck me that he was a South African who had been skiing in Colorado, halfway round the world from where you’d expect to find me. It amazes me how widely known that hat-trick is.”
Hurst has been stunned by the initial response to a campaign to pull together the nation’s recollections on what they were doing on July 30, 1966. Almost five decades have passed since English football’s finest hour and still everybody wants to talk about it.
Have à good one dude
Hurst remains the only man to have scored three goals in a World Cup final and his exploits have made him not just a household name, but well known across the globe – whether he wants to be or not.
“Last year I went with my wife for a few days in San Diego,” he said. “It was the hotel where they filmed Some Like It Hot. I was sitting in my sunglasses at the back of a crowded bar enjoying a margarita watching people going by on the walkway as I was chatting to my wife.
“All of a sudden, a fella was stood next to me. He said, ‘You know, you look like Geoff Hurst,’ I said to him, ‘No, I’m Brian Ward’ – a name I often use.
Last year I went with my wife for a few days in San Diego
Sir Geoff Hurst
“But he was having none of it. ‘You speak with the tongue of a snake,’ he replied somewhat poetically. ‘You even sound like him.’
“So I admitted who I really was – as I always do straight away after I have had my joke. But it struck me that he was a South African who had been skiing in Colorado, halfway round the world from where you’d expect to find me. It amazes me how widely known that hat-trick is.”
Hurst has been stunned by the initial response to a campaign to pull together the nation’s recollections on what they were doing on July 30, 1966. Almost five decades have passed since English football’s finest hour and still everybody wants to talk about it.
Have à good one dude
