Geoff
Hurst
Sixty years after the most famous afternoon in English football, Sir Geoff Hurst is still the man who scored three goals in a World Cup final and finished on the winning side. The West Ham striker’s hat-trick against West Germany at Wembley on July 30, 1966, gave England its only men’s World Cup. What fewer people know is the second act: a sacking at Chelsea, a cold-calling job selling insurance, and a climb to company director, followed by a knighthood, two memoirs and years of work for dementia and hospice charities. Today he is the last surviving player from England’s starting line-up in that final.
| Date of Birth | December 8, 1941 |
|---|---|
| Age | 84 years |
| Nationality | British |
| Zodiac Sign | Sagittarius |
| Occupation | Former footballer, football manager, insurance executive |
| Known As | Geoff Hurst |
| Birthplace | Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, England |
| Position | Striker |
| England Record | 49 caps, 24 goals (1966–1972) |
| Clubs | West Ham United, Stoke City, West Bromwich Albion, Seattle Sounders |
| Spouse | Judith Hurst (m. 1964) |
| Children | Claire (died 2010), Joanne, Charlotte |
| Honours | MBE (1979), Knight Bachelor (1998) |
| Notable | Only player to score a hat-trick in a men's World Cup final and win it (1966) |
| Books | 1966 and All That; Last Boy of '66 (2024) |
Biography
Geoffrey Charles Hurst was born on December 8, 1941, in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire. Football ran in the family. His father, Charlie Hurst, was a centre-half who played for Bristol Rovers, Oldham Athletic and Rochdale, and his mother, Evelyn, came from a Gloucestershire family.
The Hursts moved to Chelmsford, Essex, when Geoff was six. He grew up there with his sister Diane and younger brother Robert, and he played both football and cricket as a boy. His brother Robert died in 1974, a loss Hurst spoke about openly in a 2021 interview with The Guardian around his 80th birthday.
Cricket nearly took him in another direction. Hurst played one first-class match for Essex, against Lancashire at Aigburth on May 30, 1962, and was out for a duck. He also played 23 second XI games for the county between 1962 and 1964, usually as wicketkeeper, before football won out for good.
Career
West Ham United
Hurst joined West Ham United as a 15-year-old apprentice and turned professional in 1959. He made his first competitive appearance in February 1960, and his first goal came in a 4-2 win over Wolves in December 1961. Manager Ron Greenwood moved him from wing-half to centre-forward, and the switch made his career.
The trophies followed quickly. Hurst headed an equaliser as West Ham beat Preston North End 3-2 in the 1964 FA Cup final, and a year later the club won the European Cup Winners’ Cup at Wembley. In the 1965-66 season he scored 40 goals in 59 games, and Greenwood turned down a £200,000 offer from Manchester United to keep him.
He kept scoring for years after that. On October 19, 1968, he hit six goals in an 8-0 win over Sunderland. By the time he left in 1972, he had scored about 242 goals in 500 games for the Hammers and won the club’s Hammer of the Year award three times.
The 1966 World Cup
Hurst made his England debut against West Germany on February 23, 1966, only five months before the tournament. He started the World Cup on the bench behind Jimmy Greaves. When Greaves suffered a deep cut to his leg in the group stage, manager Alf Ramsey brought Hurst in, and he scored the only goal of the quarter-final against Argentina with a header on July 23.
The final against West Germany on July 30 became his day. He headed England’s first goal to make it 1-1. In extra time, his shot hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced down, and the linesman ruled it had crossed the line, a call German players and fans still argue about. In the last seconds he ran onto a long ball from Bobby Moore and smashed in the fourth goal for a 4-2 win, as BBC commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme famously said, “It is now! It’s four!”
It was the first hat-trick in a men’s World Cup final. Kylian Mbappé matched the feat for France in 2022, but finished on the losing side, so Hurst remains the only man to score three in a final and win it. According to his 2024 memoir Last Boy of ’66, the players were paid a £60 match fee and a £1,000 bonus for winning the whole tournament.
Speaking to Channel 4 Sport in June 2026, Hurst said he had no sense of making history on the day. “You’re thinking focusing totally, as you should do, on the game, the opponents, and the moment,” he said. He added that it’s “quite surprising in itself” that a major football nation like England has won the World Cup only once.
Later England Career
Hurst stayed in the England side for six more years. He scored in the 2-0 win over the Soviet Union that earned third place at Euro 1968, and he hit another international hat-trick in a 5-0 win over France at Wembley on March 12, 1969. At the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, he scored the only goal against Romania in England’s opening game.
His last cap came in a 3-1 defeat to West Germany on April 29, 1972. He finished with 24 goals in 49 games for his country. He was also nominated for the Ballon d’Or in 1966, 1967 and 1970.
Stoke City, West Brom and America
West Ham sold Hurst to Stoke City for £80,000 in August 1972. He won the Watney Cup with Stoke in 1973 and helped them finish fifth in the First Division in both 1973-74 and 1974-75, the highest league finishes of his career. While at Stoke he also owned the Royal Oak, an old pub in Eccleshall, Staffordshire, according to the real ale group CAMRA.
He moved to West Bromwich Albion for £20,000 in 1975 and played 12 games before a short spell with Cork Celtic in Ireland in early 1976. Later that year he joined the Seattle Sounders in the North American Soccer League. He scored eight goals in 23 regular-season games and helped the Sounders reach the playoffs for the first time.
Management at Telford, Chelsea and Kuwait
Hurst spent three years as player-manager of Telford United in the Southern League from 1976 to 1979. In 1977 he also joined Ron Greenwood’s England coaching staff, and he stayed with the national team through Euro 1980 and the 1982 World Cup.
Chelsea hired him as assistant to Danny Blanchflower in 1979 and promoted him to manager on September 13, 1979. His first season ended with Chelsea fourth in the Second Division, missing promotion on goal difference. The second went badly, with the team scoring in only three of its last 22 matches, and Chelsea sacked him on April 23, 1981. His record read 35 wins, 20 draws and 29 defeats from 84 games.
He later managed Kuwait SC from 1982 to April 1984, then left the game for good.
A Second Career in Insurance
After Chelsea, Hurst’s old England teammate Jimmy Greaves got him a job selling policies at Abbey Life, according to Insurance Times. Customers didn’t always believe the man on the phone. One reply he got was, “If you’re Geoff Hurst, I’m Marilyn Monroe.” In his autobiography 1966 and All That, he described himself in those years as just another man in the street struggling to pay the mortgage.
A chance meeting in an Essex pub took him to Motorplan, a motor warranty firm where his 1966 teammate Martin Peters worked. He started as an administrator of warranties. When London General Holdings bought Motorplan, Hurst became a director, and after the insurance group Aon bought London General he ran its domestic appliance division as managing director, according to his Anglia Ruskin University profile.
He spent around 20 years in the business. “I enjoyed my second career and having to go from the top, to the bottom and work my way back up again taught me something about humility,” he has said, adding that it was “not a bad lesson for some of the egotistical young players in the modern game.”
Ambassador, Speaker and Author
Hurst’s football name became his business again after he was knighted in 1998. He worked as an ambassador for England’s bid to host the 2006 World Cup. In 2002, McDonald’s made him its Director of Football for a UK grassroots coaching programme, a role he still holds as an ambassador, and he travels to dozens of youth football events a year for it.
He is also a busy after-dinner and corporate speaker. Speaker agency JLA lists him in its £5,000 to £10,000 fee band. Since August 1997 he has been a director of T.T.I.A.O. Limited, a small company registered for performing arts and business support work, with his wife Judith as company secretary, according to Companies House.
His first autobiography was 1966 and All That. His second book, Last Boy of ’66: My Story of England’s World Cup Winning Team, was published by Ebury Spotlight on October 24, 2024. He promoted it at the Cheltenham Literature Festival that October, where he told the audience that England had a talented enough squad to win the next World Cup.
Dementia, Charity and Controversies
Dementia has hit the 1966 team hard, and Hurst has become one of the loudest voices on it. Ray Wilson, Martin Peters, Jack Charlton and Nobby Stiles all died after living with the disease, and Sir Bobby Charlton’s diagnosis was made public in November 2020. That month Hurst told the Daily Mirror he would donate his brain to research. “I’ve never been asked that question before and my straight answer is yes if it helps,” he said.
In the same interview, he backed a ban on children heading the ball, calling it “a very strong and sensible suggestion.” He is now an ambassador for Alzheimer’s Society. In June 2026 he appeared in a Channel 4 broadcast of the 1966 final in colour, made with SunLife in aid of the charity and introduced by David Baddiel.
Watching his close friend Martin Peters decline is what pushed him to speak. The two were roommates and neighbours, and their wives still talk almost every day. “Apart from my immediate family, the closest relationship by far outside of my family are those players in the ’66 team,” Hurst told Channel 4 Sport. “I’ll do everything I can now to raise the awareness of dementia.”
His other causes are children’s health and hospice care. Hurst was president of the children’s medical research charity Sparks, which says he raised over £400,000 in his year in the role, and he later received a lifetime presidency award from the charity. Since 2020 he has been the first ambassador for Sue Ryder Leckhampton Court Hospice in Cheltenham, which cared for his daughter Claire before her death in 2010.
On the field, the only lasting dispute around Hurst is his second goal in the final. West German players and fans have argued for six decades that the ball never fully crossed the line, and the goal is still known in Germany as the “Wembley-Tor.” Hurst has stood by the linesman’s call in interview after interview.
Awards and Honours
Hurst won the FA Cup with West Ham in 1964, the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1965, the World Cup with England in 1966 and the Watney Cup with Stoke in 1973. He was named in UEFA’s Euro 1968 Team of the Tournament and picked in World Soccer’s World XI in 1967, 1968 and 1969.
He was made an MBE in the 1979 Birthday Honours and knighted in the 1998 Birthday Honours. That same year he received the Football Writers’ Association Tribute Award and was named among the Football League’s 100 Legends. Anglia Polytechnic University gave him an honorary doctorate in 1999, and he entered the English Football Hall of Fame in 2004.
Statues of Hurst stand in three places. The Champions, unveiled in 2003 on Barking Road in Newham, shows him with Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Ray Wilson. Another stands at Curzon Ashton’s ground near his birthplace, and a 2021 statue at the London Stadium shows him with Moore and Peters.
Personal Life
Hurst has been married to Judith Hurst (née Harries) since October 13, 1964, when they wed at Chelmsford Cathedral, less than two years before the World Cup. The couple live in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Their family story, including how they met and their three daughters, is told in full in our piece on Geoff Hurst’s wife and children.
The family’s hardest loss came in December 2010. Their eldest daughter, Claire, died after a ten-year illness with a brain tumour, which was found while she was pregnant. Hurst has spoken often about the care she received at the end. “The expert nursing care and medical support that Claire received at Sue Ryder Leckhampton Court Hospice meant that we could simply concentrate on being there for Claire as a family,” he said in a statement for the charity.
He also lost his 1966 teammates one by one. After Sir Bobby Charlton died in October 2023, Hurst became the last survivor of the team that started the final. “It’s extremely sad. They’ve all gone,” he told LBC in June 2024. “I’d like to see us win a major trophy in my lifetime.”
Timeline
1941: Born on December 8 in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire.
1957: Joins West Ham United as an apprentice.
1959: Turns professional at West Ham.
1960: Makes his first competitive appearance for West Ham in February.
1962: Plays his only first-class cricket match for Essex on May 30.
1964: Scores in West Ham’s FA Cup final win on May 2 and marries Judith on October 13.
1965: Wins the European Cup Winners’ Cup with West Ham.
1966: Makes his England debut on February 23 and scores a hat-trick in the World Cup final on July 30.
1968: Scores six goals against Sunderland on October 19 and helps England finish third at Euro 1968.
1969: Scores a hat-trick for England against France on March 12.
1970: Scores against Romania at the World Cup in Mexico.
1972: Wins his 49th and last England cap on April 29 and joins Stoke City for £80,000 in August.
1973: Wins the Watney Cup with Stoke.
1974: His younger brother Robert dies.
1975: Joins West Bromwich Albion.
1976: Plays for Cork Celtic and Seattle Sounders, then becomes Telford United player-manager.
1977: Joins Ron Greenwood’s England coaching staff.
1979: Made an MBE and appointed Chelsea manager on September 13.
1981: Sacked by Chelsea on April 23 and starts selling insurance at Abbey Life.
1982: Takes charge of Kuwait SC.
1984: Leaves Kuwait in April and returns to insurance for good.
1997: Becomes director of T.T.I.A.O. Limited on August 28.
1998: Knighted in the Birthday Honours.
2000: His 1966 final shirt sells at Christie’s for £91,750.
2002: Named McDonald’s Director of Football for UK grassroots football.
2003: The Champions statue is unveiled in Newham.
2004: Inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame.
2010: Daughter Claire dies; becomes president of Sparks.
2020: Becomes Sue Ryder Leckhampton Court’s first ambassador and offers his brain for dementia research.
2021: A statue of Hurst, Moore and Peters is unveiled at the London Stadium.
2023: Becomes the last surviving starter of the 1966 final after Sir Bobby Charlton dies.
2024: Publishes Last Boy of ’66 on October 24.
2026: Appears in Channel 4’s colour broadcast of the 1966 final for Alzheimer’s Society.
Net Worth
Sir Geoff Hurst’s net worth is estimated at $4.5–6 million. Most of it comes from life after football rather than the game itself. The 1966 squad played for a £60 match fee and a £1,000 winning bonus, and top players of that era earned a tiny fraction of today’s wages.
The bigger money came later. Hurst spent about 20 years in insurance, rising to director at London General Holdings and managing director of a division at Aon. Since the late 1990s he has earned from speaking, where agencies book him at £5,000 to £10,000 an appearance, along with his long ambassador role with McDonald’s and two books. In September 2000 he also sold his 1966 final shirt at Christie’s for £91,750.
That puts him well ahead of some of his era. Jimmy Greaves, who found him that first insurance job, was worth about $100,000 when he died, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Sir Bobby Charlton, who spent decades as a Manchester United director, left a fortune Celebrity Net Worth puts at $25 million, while modern broadcaster Gary Lineker sits at $35 million on the same site.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Geoff Hurst’s net worth?
Sir Geoff Hurst’s net worth is estimated at $4.5–6 million, built mainly from his insurance career, speaking fees, ambassador work and books.
Is Geoff Hurst still alive?
Yes. Sir Geoff Hurst turns 85 on December 8, 2026, and lives in Cheltenham. He is the last surviving player from England’s starting line-up in the 1966 World Cup final.
Who is Geoff Hurst’s wife?
His wife is Judith Hurst. They married at Chelmsford Cathedral on October 13, 1964, and have been together for more than 60 years.
How many children does Geoff Hurst have?
He and Judith have three daughters, Claire, Joanne and Charlotte. Claire died in 2010 after a long illness with a brain tumour.
Has anyone else scored a hat-trick in a World Cup final?
Kylian Mbappé scored three for France in the 2022 final against Argentina, but France lost on penalties. Hurst is still the only player to score a hat-trick in a men’s World Cup final and win it.
What did Geoff Hurst do after football?
He managed Chelsea and Kuwait SC, then spent about 20 years in insurance, rising to company director. Since being knighted in 1998 he has worked as a speaker, author and ambassador for McDonald’s grassroots football and several charities.
