Geoff Hurst and the Unlikely Heroes of England Football
Geoff Hurst’s name is stitched into English football folklore, but his story begins in the shadows.
Sixty years ago, he was not the chosen one. Jimmy Greaves was. Greaves, the natural finisher, the man many still call the greatest goalscorer England have produced, started that World Cup as Sir Alf Ramsey’s first-choice striker. Hurst was the understudy, the insurance policy, the man waiting on a twist of fate.
That twist came. Greaves suffered an injury. Opportunity knocked, and Hurst didn’t just walk through the door – he tore it off its hinges.
On that famous day at Wembley, Hurst delivered a hat-trick against West Germany, the only player ever to score three in a World Cup final. Fans spilled onto the pitch before the final whistle, convinced it was “all over” long before the commentator immortalised the line. The West Ham forward, once second in line, became the symbol of England’s greatest footballing moment.
No England side has matched that achievement since. No English player has repeated what Hurst did on that July afternoon. He remains the benchmark for the unlikely hero.
It is that storyline – the man from nowhere, the player who seizes a sliver of opportunity and turns it into legend – that Michael Owen sees when he looks at Kobbie Mainoo.
The former England striker, speaking to GOAL in his role as a UK ambassador for Casino.org, admitted he feels a twinge of sympathy for the young midfielder. Mainoo has watched on at times while England have searched for control in the centre of the pitch, his own qualities sitting tantalisingly on the edge of the action.
“I do a little bit,” Owen said when asked if he feels for the Manchester United youngster. “Because I think he's definitely got the ability to play a role in the World Cup. And who knows? Things change, you get unlikely heroes.”
Owen reaches straight for the most powerful example English football can offer.
“Our greatest moment ever in this country, winning the World Cup, who would have thought Geoff Hurst would have been playing?” he said. “Jimmy Greaves was the best thing since sliced bread. My dad just raves about Jimmy Greaves. When anyone's talking about the best England XI and things like that, my dad's like, ‘Jimmy Greaves’ straight away. He was insanely good. Now, things happen, and all of a sudden, Geoff Hurst plays, and look what happens.”
That is the point. Tournaments are not won on paper. They are shaped by injuries, suspensions, form swings, moments of chaos and clarity. They are decided by players who were nowhere near the first draft of the script.
“There will be, or there could be, a surprise,” Owen continued. “And it could be Mainoo, you can't switch off.”
He is blunt about England’s campaign so far. The results have not been framed, in his eyes, as they should be.
“Really, what we've done so far, if we had been knocked out, there would have been a huge inquest,” he said. “I mean, nobody should be really in our league.”
England, he argues, have allowed the narrative to inflate opponents who should be handled with authority.
“We've built it up as if Mexico was the hardest game of all time, but come on,” Owen said. “Norway, if we played Norway at a neutral ground, let's say we play Norway in Spain tomorrow, people would expect us to beat them two or 3-0. So when you look back, we should be beating every single team.”
Those are the standards he believes this England squad must live by. Routine wins should feel routine. Only now, he suggests, does the real examination begin.
“This [Argentina] is now the first game, this is a proper game, this is one that is a toss of a coin, this is one that's going to challenge us,” he said. “But everything so far has been what you would expect from England, surely.”
The stakes rise, the margin for error shrinks, and the cast of potential heroes widens. Knockout football does that. It drags new names into the spotlight.
“We will see,” Owen said. “But if we're going to win it, there are going to be so many twists and turns and so many heroes that we won't even be thinking at the moment. And Mainoo could be one of them.”
Hurst once stepped in for a superstar and changed English football history. Mainoo, waiting, watching, preparing, knows exactly what that kind of chance looks like. The question now is whether this World Cup writes his name into the story, or leaves him as the next great “what if” in a shirt heavy with expectation.
