Unlikely Heroes: Lessons from Geoff Hurst’s Hat-Trick for England

Sixty years on from Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick etching itself into English football folklore, the lesson from 1966 still echoes: World Cups are built on unlikely heroes.

Back then, Hurst was not the headline act. He was the understudy. Jimmy Greaves, the supreme goalscorer of his generation, started the tournament as Sir Alf Ramsey’s first-choice striker. Greaves was the name on every supporter’s lips, the man Owen’s father still “raves about”, the automatic pick whenever the “best England XI” debate breaks out. Then came injury, a twist of fate that opened the door.

Hurst walked through it and never looked back. A final at Wembley. A hat-trick against West Germany. Supporters spilling onto the pitch before it was, finally, “all over”. One man’s misfortune, another’s immortality. The West Ham forward became the symbol of England’s greatest footballing moment, a standard no England side has matched since.

That story sits at the heart of Michael Owen’s belief that Kobbie Mainoo must stay ready, even if he is not yet central to England’s plans. Speaking to GOAL in his role as a UK ambassador for Casino.org, Owen made it clear he sees something in the young midfielder.

“I do a little bit,” Owen said when asked if he feels for Mainoo, given the calls for more control in England’s midfield. “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.”

The comparison is not like-for-like – Hurst was a striker, Mainoo a midfielder still learning the international game – but the principle is the same. Tournaments move fast. Squads bend under pressure. Plans get ripped up. The player on the fringes today can become the centrepiece tomorrow.

Owen leans on history to make the point. “Our greatest moment ever in this country, winning the World Cup, who would have thought Geoff Hurst would have been playing? Jimmy Greaves was the best thing since sliced bread… He was insanely good. Now, things happen, and all of a sudden, Geoff Hurst plays, and look what happens.”

So Mainoo waits. Watches. Learns. And knows that one turn of the competition could thrust him into the spotlight.

Owen is adamant England should already have made lighter work of the journey so far. The way he sees it, the group and early knockout stages were not some gauntlet to be survived, but fixtures a side of England’s depth ought to handle with authority.

“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.”

The narrative around opponents has irritated him too. England, he feels, have talked themselves into believing they were navigating giants, when the expectation should have been something far more ruthless.

“We've built it up as if Mexico was the hardest game of all time, but come on,” Owen argued. “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.”

That, in his mind, is the standard. That is the level England should demand of themselves: not relief at progress, but conviction in superiority.

Now, though, comes the step up. No illusions, no soft framing. Argentina.

“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,” Owen said. “But everything so far has been what you would expect from England, surely.”

The tone shifts here. Respect for the opponent, recognition of the jeopardy. This is where tournaments sharpen. This is where careers change.

And this is where someone like Mainoo can suddenly matter.

“We will see,” Owen added, “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.”

England know this story. They have lived it once with Hurst, the reserve who rewrote history. The question now is whether another name, perhaps a teenager in the shadows of the midfield, is about to step out and write the next chapter.