Football’s Greatest Hat-Tricks No.3
I realised last night that I haven’t written one of these articles for quite a while now.
This time, I think that it’s appropriate that I include Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick in the 1966 World Cup Final. My reasoning is that last Thursday (30th July) marked the 52nd anniversary since the greatest moment in English football history as England beat West Germany to win their only major tournament to date.
Hurst’s hat-trick remains the only one scored in a World Cup Final and so for that reason, it must be considered one of the greatest hat-tricks of all-time.
England had started slowly in their World Cup, starting with a goalless draw against Uruguay. They followed this up with 2-0 victories over Mexico and France to top their group. This was important as it meant that they would play their knockout games at Wembley Stadium.
With the huge crowds at Wembley cheering them on, they beat Argentina in their Quarter Final thanks to a goal from Geoff Hurst. Portugal were beaten 2-1 thanks to a double from Bobby Charlton to set up a Final against West Germany, who had beaten the Soviet Union in the other Semi Final.
In the Final, England fell behind after Helmut Haller opened the scoring following a defensive lapse. Six minutes later, Hurst nodded in England’s equaliser after quick thinking from the captain Bobby Moore.
Moore had been fouled outside the West Germany penalty area and the captain got up, looked up and quickly floated the free kick towards the far post. Hurst jumped highest, heading back across goal, past Jan Tilkowski in the Germany goal.
Martin Peters gave England a 2-1 lead with 12 minutes of the game remaining and with seconds of the match remaining, Wolfgang Weber forced in an equaliser to take the game to Extra Time.
Both teams collapsed with exhaustion in the centre of the pitch but England manager Alf Ramsey came over to his players and ordered them to stand up. His reasoning was that he didn’t want the West German counterparts to see that his players were tired. He told his charges that they have won the game once, now go and do it again.
With the words of Ramsey still ringing in their ears, England took to the field once more and thanks to two goals from Hurst, won the game 4-2.
Hurst’s second of the game was steeped in controversy and is still debated to this day. 21 year old Alan Ball took the ball down the right wing and whipped the ball in to Hurst at the near post.
The West Ham striker had his back to goal, controlled the ball before turning and rifling in a hard shot of the underside of the crossbar. Where it bounced next is still talked about 52 years later.
The England players and fans claimed that the ball had crossed the goalline, West Germany claim that the ball didn’t. Photos and video footage from the day do not conclusively show whether it was a goal or not so we cannot say for certain, but Tofik Bakhramov (the linesman nearest the goal) said that the ball had gone in.
Geoff Hurst went on to secure the win in the final seconds to complete his hat-trick and confirm the win for the host nation. Again he was set up by Bobby Moore, this time thanks to a long ball forward from deep in the England half and over the German line of defence. Hurst chased after the ball and thumped the ball hard into the top corner of the net to give England the win.
When asked about the third goal, Hurst later said that he was just trying to waste a few seconds by trying to hit the ball as hard as he could away from danger to try and prevent West Germany from equalising!
Luckily for us, he managed to find the back of the net and gave BBC commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme a place in history as he uttered the immortal line of “And it’s Hurst, there’s people on the pitch, they think it’s all over…It is now!”
There was one Englishman at Wembley that afternoon who wasn’t happy with the win. That was a certain Jimmy Greaves, who had started the first couple of games in the tournament before picking up a nasty shin injury against France in the third and final group game. He would almost certainly have played in the Final had it not been for that injury and Geoff Hurst took his place.
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