Sir Geoff Hurst’s documentary reveals the trauma of losing his brother to suicide and daughter to cancer

‘I was like any other guy on the street,’ Sir Geoff Hurst says, without a lick of sarcasm.

The England World Cup Hero of 1966 is recalling his life after football and how, for a while, the game he had given so much to had turned its back on him, to the point where he had no choice but to claim unemployment benefits.

‘I signed on the dole,’ he explains.

‘Whatever you’ve achieved on the salaries we were on, everybody had to go out and get a job, that was the way it was.’

Hurst, sacked as manager of Chelsea in 1981, was given little margin for error financially with three daughters – Claire, Joanne and Charlotte – at Notre Dame private school in Cobham, and bills to pay for his family, whom he affectionately calls ‘the mob ‘.

Sir Geoff Hurst (middle) is a devoted family man who had to sign onto the dole years after he scored a hat-trick in the 1966 World Cup final for England, a new documentary has revealed

Hurst (third from left) remains the only man to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final

It is a tale from Hurst: The First and Onlya new documentary series that airs for the first time on Sky on November 13, that highlights, in a microcosm, the resilience and fortitude of Hurst away from the Limelight football thrust upon him.

Described in one moment as a ‘walking statue’, Hurst is portrayed as a considered man who enjoys a simple life, without much grandiose or fuss.

He achieved legendary status at West Ham after 499 games and 248 goals while he remains the only man ever to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final.

And yet this is a film as much about defeating West Germany at Wembley to win the World Cup in 1966 as it is about his relationship with grief and death.

Case in point, Hurst’s younger brother Robert took his own life by jumping in front of a train at Chelmsford station in 1974. Reflecting on the trauma, Hurst’s whole demeanor changes.

‘I would use the word Troubled as I thought he was,’ Hurst explains, when asked how he found his brother to be.

As well as the football, the documentary explores Hurst’s (front row, right) relationship with his younger brother Robert (front row, center), who committed suicide when in his mid-20s

The question of the dynamic in his family comes to the fore.

His dad Charlie, a semi-professional footballer before the Second World War who had spells with Rochdale and Oldham Athletic, rarely served up praise for his children. But after Hurst’s Wembley heroics he had become something of a ‘celebrity’ in his own home.

Did Robert, or his sister Diane, feel jealous at his elevated status?

‘I don’t think there was any envy at all from my brother or sister,’ he adds. ‘I don’t for one second ever think there was any envy about the success I achieved.’

Hurst begins to look at a family photo when, for the first time in the film, he is visibly choked up.

He is looking at an old photo where he is standing in a suit and tie next to his eldest daughter Claire.

After three years of misdiagnosis, she was told at 23 years old that she had a brain tumor. In 2010, at the age of 46, she passed away.

Grief is a key theme and Hurst (right) also discusses losing eldest daughter Claire to a tumor

Hurst glances back at a photo of Claire on a big projector screen when a tremble in his voice cuts him off.

As he puts it: ‘You never lose it, it never passes. Every time someone touches it it immediately brings tears to your eyes.’

There is a poignancy, too, in hearing the Voices of Gordan Banks and Martin Peters, two team-mates from ’66 that died in 2019.

Hurst, one of three Survivors of Sir Alf Ramsey’s side along with Sir Bobby Charlton and George Cohen, is soon looking at another photo that, much like the one of daughter Claire, is ‘tinged with sadness’. This time it is a team photo in the lead-up to the World Cup of ’66. It again hits home how much loss he has suffered in recent years.

But this is a film that dovetails all of that grief with football, and specifically his exploits in the 1966 World Cup final.

Archive footage paints the picture of delirium in the stands at Wembley Stadium as Hurst, Banks, Peters, Cohen, Bobby Moore and others emerged to a wall of noise.

Watching a clip of the first goal, Hurst comes alive as if it was being broken down straight after the match.

Moore lifts his head up, clips a free-kick into the box for an unmarked Hurst to head in.

For Hurst it was a goal born in east London with the wisdom of West Ham Coach Ron Greenwood.

Along with Bobby Moore (middle) and Martin Peters (right), the West Ham trio, who were influential for England in the 1966 World Cup final, were likened to the band, The Beatles

Hurst (left) is a Legend at West Ham and another Hammers great Mark Noble (right) labels him a ‘lead actor’ in a blockbuster production in 1966, as he scored a hat-trick in the Wembley final

Mark Noble, himself a Legend at West Ham, likens Hurst and Moore to ‘lead actors’ in a blockbuster movie.

Another description Compares West Ham’s England stars of the 60s to the Beatles.

‘West Ham won the World Cup,’ is the claim in the film, with Moore as Captain and Hurst and Peters the goalscorers. Hurst can only chuckle.

Throngs of fans gathered outside the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington as players toasted World Cup Glory – and a 1,000 bonus.

But Hurst does not – and will not – airbrush the fact that ‘mates’ isn’t how he regarded his West Ham team-mates.

‘I wouldn’t for one second say we were close as mates,’ he explains, looking at a photo of himself alongside Moore and Peters.

‘That’s not detrimental to our relationship but you wouldn’t term it as close. Bobby didn’t have mates, that was the type of person he was. If he said well done to me that was the best you’d get.

‘I can’t remember Martin saying well done. In terms of team-mates I have the highest respect for them as players and individuals.’

The breakdown of the ’66 final is, naturally, a big component of Hurst’s story. It’s been documented extensively and yet Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, Gareth Southgate and more remain as enthused as ever to reflect on it.

Hurst opens up on his relationship with Moore (middle) and Peters (left) while at West Ham

Ex-England striker and BBC Match of the Day host Gary Lineker appears in the documentary

Current England manager Gareth Southgate is another to give his take on Hurst’s life

‘It’s immortal,’ effuses Lineker.

But World Cup Glory in isolation cannot begin to tell Hurst’s story.

Less than two decades after the Ultimate honor in sport he was on the dole before a recommendation from Jimmy Greaves paved the way for a second life in insurance.

In one of his first days in the job for Abbey Life, he recounts one phone call which, if he wasn’t already, took any potential pedestal right out from under him.

‘If you’re Geoff Hurst, I’m f***ing Marilyn Monroe,’ said a man’s voice on the other end of the line.

Hurst’s crowning moment remains one of the greatest in football history, but away from the pitch, it wasn’t all ‘sugar and spice’, as he puts it.

The topic of grief and death is one he no longer shirks. Years of avoiding it are gone and even his own eventual death is something he is open to discuss.

‘I don’t want a fuss made,’ he says, remarkably for a man many are eager to celebrate at any given moment for what he achieved with West Ham and England.

‘I don’t want anything fancy or any special day in church. I don’t want it.’

A quiet man. A family man. Hurst may be the first and only man to score a World Cup final hat-trick, but there is so much more to his story than 120 Glorious minutes at Wembley 56 years ago.

The movie,Hurst: The First and Onlywill air on Sky Documentaries on November 13 at 7pm

Hurst: The First and Only will air on Sky Documentaries on November 13 at 7pm and will be available on the streaming service NOW.