OLIVER HOLT: My magical night with Sir Geoff Hurst

• I recently attended a meet and greet with England World Cup hero Geoff Hurst
• Hurst scored a hat trick in the 1966 Finals and reflected on that feat
• He also spoke about the relationships he had developed with his England team-mates

Thick, wet flakes of snow were already covering the road outside the Royal Spa Center when spectators, who had paid a few pounds more to attend the meet-and-greet part of the evening with Sir Geoff Hurst, arrived in the foyer.

We found solace in shelter and warmth. A huge poster announcing an upcoming night out with Anton du Beke and a flyer for a show called Totally Tina stared down at us from the walls.

I bought a couple of autographed retro shirts – one West Ham, one England – from a souvenir stand set up on a trestle table.

There were other options: autographed Geoff Hurst boots, autographed Geoff Hurst footballs, autographed Geoff Hurst photos, Denis Law memorabilia, Martin Peters memorabilia, George Best memorabilia and a bright yellow Brazil jersey with Pele’s signature on it. All our yesterdays at a provincial theater in Leamington Spa.

I stood for a while admiring a print of the famous image of Sir Geoff in mid-air at Wembley Stadium on 30th July 1966, his left leg stretched out in front of him and the ball hurtling towards the West German net, one of the greatest sports -Action pictures ever taken.

It was England’s fourth goal in the World Cup final and Hurst’s third. Somewhere high up in the stands, BBC commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme said: “They think it’s all over, it’s over now”.

One of the employees asked us to form a line for the meet and greet. After a while we entered the auditorium and sat down in the first two rows. I looked at the people around me. There were a lot of West Ham fans there, old and young. And many people, like me, football fans who had come to say that they had once met and listened to England’s greatest living footballer, a man who would be a legend at any age.

A lady came in with the help of two sticks. I spoke to her afterwards. Her name was Myrtle Tunney and she was 86 years old and she had come with three generations of her West Ham supporting family.

She had grown up in Forest Gate and been a regular at Upton Park when Sir Geoff, Bobby Moore and Peters were at the side. We were all here on a kind of pilgrimage and this was hers.

A pilgrimage, and perhaps a little more than that. Sir Geoff is one of the last links to a vanishing world, a link to a piece of glorious history we have never quite been able to replicate.

Only he and the great Sir Bobby Charlton remain of the Boys of 66, the team that remains in our memories as the young men who gave England its greatest sporting moment almost 60 years ago.

Perhaps one of the lessons we can learn from the Gary Lineker affair, one of the lessons the BBC should have heeded, is that there is a strong bond between the sports heroes of yore and the fans.

It’s hard to break that bond and football’s near-unanimous support for Lineker, who isn’t a world champion but is one of our all-time all-time all-time scorers, was another reminder of the affection we have for football’s icons.

Being in Hurst’s company, hearing him speak, listening to him reminisce is something precious if you love our game. We talk a lot about honoring the sporting heroes of the past and wanting to show them they are not forgotten, but all too often it’s just lip service.

Anyway, the evening at the Royal Spa Center was a small opportunity for me to show one of my heroes how much we appreciate what he has done for our game and how much we appreciate the team he represents.

I’ve met Sir Geoff briefly before, at press events here and there, but I would have paid double or triple what I paid at Leamington Spa to shake his hand and listen to him tell stories that brought that golden day back to life at Wembley.

When it was my turn, I went on stage to have my picture taken with him and my shirts signed. Exchanging a few words with him and these memorabilia I captured are things I will cherish.

Half an hour after he finished his meet and greet, a larger group of us streamed back into the auditorium to listen to him chat about the past. I’ve heard quite a few stories, of course, like the fact that Hurst knew his second goal had crossed the line when it bounced off the bar because Roger Hunt, a superb goalscorer, turned away when he saw where it had landed was.

And there were some stories I hadn’t heard. Running for goal in the final seconds of extra time, Hurst said he heard Alan Ball, who was man of the match that day, yelling at him to pass.

“Hursty, Hursty,” Hurst shrieked, imitating Ball’s famously high-pitched voice. Hurst said with a big smile and a lighthearted profanity that he got the thought out of his head.

“My thought was that I was going to hit him as hard as possible,” he said, “and that I would probably miss him, but that he would fly so far over the bar that by the time he got back he would.” could be, then surely luckily the game would be over. Anyway, as we all know, I screwed up and it went in.’

The audience erupted in a little thunderous applause at this point, and this image of Hurst in the air, his left leg stretched out in front of him, went through the minds of everyone in the theater.

Hurst spoke about Sir Alf Ramsey, Bobby Moore and Jimmy Greaves, the man he called “a genius”, the man whose place on the team he took midway through the tournament.

He spoke of how Manchester United manager Sir Matt Busby once offered West Ham £200,000 to sign him and West Ham manager Ron Greenwood sent back a telegram which just said: ‘No, Thanks.”

And he also spoke of sadness. He spoke about Ray Wilson, England’s final left-back, who at a reunion a few years ago told the rest of the team that he was in the early stages of dementia.

He spoke about how his great friend Peters suddenly collapsed in labor of the same illness. Hurst is slim and slender and perceptive at 81, but he paused there for a moment as he reflected on the friends he’d lost.

After a few hours it was over, the applause rang out, the spell was broken and we all went back to the foyer. It was still snowing outside in those awesome wet flakes, so I held the signed shirts in a plastic bag in my hand and wrapped them even more tightly against the elements.

Guardiola shaped a generation

In a ranking of the best coaches from 1996 to 2022, compiled by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, Sir Alex Ferguson is number one, Jose Mourinho is second, Pep Guardiola is third, Arsene Wenger is fourth and Joachim Low in fifth place.

It seemed a little odd to me not to have Carlo Ancelotti (who finished sixth) higher up the list as he has won the Champions League four times in the years allotted, but they are all great managers.

Another question would be who was the most influential coach of the last 25 years. In that list, Guardiola would be the sole leader.

BBC radio stars deserve gratitude, not abuse

The slurs against non-Match of the Day radio commentators Ian Dennis, John Murray and Alistair Bruce-Ball who did their weekend work was nothing more than the ugly, irrational, misguided rabble of a mob.

Dennis, Murray and Bruce-Ball represent the best of BBC Sport. They are his finest radio commentators and operators, professional to the core, loyal, dedicated, knowledgeable, informed and delightful to listen to.

A car ride accompanied by one of their game commentators is an enriching journey and a part of life. Dennis, Murray and Bruce-Ball were not disloyal to Lineker – who won a humiliating relegation from the company on Monday – any more than Carol Kirkwood was disloyal to him by reporting the weather on BBC Breakfast.

The idea that they would undermine Lineker in any way is patently absurd. In fact, it seemed rather ironic that in the midst of a dispute that involved free speech in part, some sought to impose a tyranny of silence on other broadcasters.

Of course, there were some unconnected to the Match of the Day who nevertheless chose to take a stance lest they miss an opportunity for some reflective virtue. Dennis, Murray and Bruce-Ball, who work on salaried jobs at the BBC anyway, fulfilled their obligations to their listeners and, like hundreds of thousands of their followers, I was grateful to them.