FEATURE: Geoff Hurst's 1966 Shirt, with Gordon Mousinho

The incredible story of Geoff Hurst's 1966 World Cup shirt, with regular guest Gordon Mousinho. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Good afternoon, this is Deku and Link in Orlando, Florida. I'm looking forward to speaking to one of our regular contributors, Gordon Massino, this afternoon, about a special story. Good afternoon, Gordon. How are you today?

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Hello, Dek. I'm very well, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Good to see your happy smiling Brad Pitt-like face. It's incredible. Modern technology, isn't it? Okay, we we we are going to be uh talking at length in the next uh week or two about a certain event that happened on a hot Saturday afternoon in North London on July the 30th, 1966, with Gordon and Keir. And that's not the Prime Minister I'm talking about, where there was nearly 100,000 people packed beneath the famous Twin Towers, where millions were crowded around black and white televisions across England. We're going to talk today about the person who has become immortal after that fantastic afternoon, and that person is Sir Jeff Hurst. And the link with Gordon this afternoon, apart from the fact that he was at the game, was somehow, somehow, he ended up with Sir Jeff Hurst's shirt. Gordon, the microphone is yours. How did that happen?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Long story, Dick. Uh, one thing I'd say, it was not uniformly hot on that afternoon. It rained during the match for part of the match. But um, yeah, generally not a bad day for English football. One that was never repeated. So how did I end up repeated though? How did I well we can only hope and dream? How did I end up with the shirt? It all began, I mean, I guess like like a lot of schoolboys, I was a sort of collector of programs and magazines, Charlie Buckin's football monthly shoot, etc. etc. And I, unlike many uh schoolboys, carried on that uh sort of football program, at least collecting tradition, on and off, you know, through my adulthood. So um by the time the 1998 World Cup rolled round, I had a pretty decent collection of Brentford and Spurs in particular football programs, and quite a good one of England programmes, having been to lots of internationals. Just before the 1998 World Cup uh uh Sotheby's, I think it was, was going into um football memorabilia as a sort of new line of business and a chap called Graham Budd, who uh is actually still very much in in that business uh ran an auction. And this sort of looked interesting to me. I kind of sat and listened. Uh you had to do it by phone then of course. Uh didn't buy anything, but lots of good stuff seemed to be on there. And it was followed about a day later or two days later by an auction uh run by their rival house, Christie's. And so I participated again and I was lucky enough at that time to have a few bob to spare. And uh so I invested my words in um Alan Ball's spare shirt from that final. Everybody in those days, all the England players, and here was given two shirts for the final. FA was supremely generous as ever. And this was the one that Borley did not wear in the final, or it could not be proved that he wore in the final. Uh and and I bought it. And uh things rolled on from there reasonably quickly. At an auction following that, I bought um Roger Hunt's shirt from the final, Lotar Emmerich's shirt from the final, Paul will like that. And Wolfgang Weber's shirt from the final. Weber's shirt still had the mud on it on the back from where he slid in uh to score that equalizer in the 90th minute. He hadn't washed it, and I daredn't wash it. So I had three shirts. I was in Sydney for the 2000 Olympics. Get a call from Graham Bud saying, You're gonna like this, we got Jeff's shirt up for auction. What do you think? I said, Well, you know. I listen in in the middle of the night from Sydney, see how it goes. So we're in Sydney, Katie goes to bed. I was saying, I'll just listen into this auction. She said, Don't buy it. I said, No, no, no, I'm just listening in. The rest, of course, is history. Three three o'clock in the morning, or four in the morning, I think it was by the time the bidding came to a climax. I'd uh dipped my hand in my pocket, went to bed, woke up in the morning and Kate says, You bought it, didn't you? I said, Well, I may have done. And uh she said, How much did you spend? Don't tell me. She said, I said I won't tell you then. So um yeah, that was how I acquired Sir Jeff's well not Sir Jeff then, Jeff's shirt.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Fantastic. Absolutely incredible. What did you actually do with them? Did you put them on the wall in your house? Did you stick them under the bed? Did you uh show them off somewhere?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Well, it was a sort of combination of those things. I didn't stick them up on the wall. I did keep them in my cupboard in in um suitable uh sort of bags that that didn't you know that kept them nicely. Uh now and again I wore one wore it out just for fun.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

And sorry, with with with Jeff Hurst with Jeff's shirt, was it the first shirt, the actual one he wore, or was it the second shirt?

SPEAKER_01 6:57

No, it was the actual one. All the ones apart from Bohr were the actual ones they wore. Um it it could be that one, Jeff said yes, that that was the actual one. We had to take his word for it. Um Weber and Hunt swapped shirts, so we knew that those were the ones that you know that that they'd worn, and Emmerich was the same. He it came through Ray Wilson, I think, or something like that. Um, so we knew these were really match-worn shirts. Uh very good, very good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

And uh, you know, the the the question on the tip of the tongue of our tens of thousands of global listeners, I'm gonna ask it anyway, and you're gonna say, mind your own business, or I'd have to kill you if I told you that. Is give us an idea roughly of how much it ended up costing, or tell me I I your researcher should have done this for you, Dek, because it is in the public domain. That she called in sick today.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

So so let's say it was between the figures of 9-5 and 100, and you can put as many knots on the end of that as you want.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

And did your wife Katie end up warming up to the ideas of these uh old famous football shirts in her house? Or did she, or did you just have to be a good boy forever until you uh obviously moved them on?

SPEAKER_01 8:30

No, no, no. She she quite enjoyed them. The the the boys were overjoyed, of course. Um we got we got some residual celebrity. Uh Ricky Tomlinson was doing a a program uh many years later for another when the World Cup was 20 uh 14, I think, or 2000 no, no, it would have been much earlier, 2006. And uh he was doing a program on all the shirts, and he came round to our house for the Hunt and Hirst shirts. Uh that was a lot of fun. He was a great he is a great bloke, I think he's still going. Um lot of scouse humour, etcetera, etcetera. And uh yeah, so we got a got a bit of a kick out of it then. And as you say, it in in the end, I got an offer that was too good to refuse, and uh it was moved on.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Did did you did you move them all on at the same time or was it uh one at the time piece?

SPEAKER_01 9:33

No, all at the same time. I had by then some very other interesting pieces of uh memorabilia, including the pennant that Uwe Zela handed to Bobby Moore at the start of the final. I'd also built up my program collection quite a lot to include every England pro program since the war at home. And um also the 1901 cup final, where as you know, Spurs became and remain the only non-league club ever to win the FA Cup. Take that Arsenal.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

I was gonna say Spurs, Spurs fans feeling good of themselves because they got a we a win last weekend, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Well, they've won their last two, actually. Why don't they're on a run?

SPEAKER_02 10:25

If they hadn't won their last two, they're probably you'd be hiding behind the sofa, and you certainly wouldn't have brought that up in the in the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Uh oh, you know I would have done. I don't really mind it. But uh but there was okay, comes a time. I mean, I think there comes a time for most people, certainly for me, where it was great having them, but then you were starting to think, well, what am I gonna do with all this stuff? Um as time passes, may as well, you know, maximize the value.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Did do you end up getting a positive return on your original investment?

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Oh, very much so.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Good, good. And how did the other question is, were you actively looking to move them on at the time, or was it a move out of the left field?

SPEAKER_01 11:11

It it it was a call again from Graham Budd saying, look, I've got a buyer who's interested um on the condition of anonymity for him or her, I don't know. Um I suspect it's a him, I don't think many women are memorabilia collectors, or not football memorabilia collectors. Uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

I mean, without global audience going up weekly by at least three, four, five thousand, there might be some females out there that would get really excited about wearing a a football shirt from 1966. You just never know. Don't assume it is a man, because we're living in a bit of a strange world right now. But uh was it was it was it tearful when you said goodbye to the shirt?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

No, not really, not really. I mean it it it was just a phase of my life, and uh it was really good to have had it for a few years. Uh the buyer has tried to sell it unsuccessfully a couple of times since, maybe even try again this year. But he's putting it up for a million quid. And you know, it I think that time has passed.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

You I mean, you you that's a better bargain than those two World Cup final tickets, though, that Met Life. That uh Johnny Infantino's gonna deliver the hot dogs to.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Brilliant. Well, that's a fantastic story, Gordon. I I knew that you had to share, I didn't know the the circumstances, so thank you for sharing with us. One last thing, obviously, we're in the the home stretch now for the uh the 2026 World Cup tournament to start. Uh, are you sleeping well at night? Are you so excited that it's completely taking everything else away in your mind? That's all you're thinking about. What are your thoughts? And it are you excited with it all coming up?

SPEAKER_01 13:02

I'm starting to get excited. We've got a couple of things before that that are taking up my mind. Uh I'm actually down in uh Portsmouth grandparents sitting all this week, as my son and his wife have gone off for a holiday.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Uh does he know that you're wearing his clothes?

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Uh, yes, he does. Okay. Um so that's one thing. And then, of course, the my youngest son gets married in a couple of weeks' time. So once all that's out of the way, um, I guess, I guess once we're heading to the airport and on the plane, it'll start to kick in.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Well, great. I mean, obviously, with all of the European uh competitions coming to a close soon, with all the big European elites coming to a close soon, with Arsenal doing the double, um, it's gonna be nothing to talk about. So that's gonna be the conversation everywhere. So, as with any tournament, the excitement we'll be building despite all the nonsense that's going on with the World Cup.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Correct. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

All right, Gordon, thank you so much for your time. Lovely catching up with you. Give our best to everyone, and we really appreciate your your contributions, and we'll be talking to you and Kia hopefully in the next week or two.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

All right, cheers. So that's it from us for today.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

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SPEAKER_03 14:40

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SPEAKER_00 14:46

Also check out our World Sports, etc. podcast for more sports news and stories. And with that, thank you so much for listening and goodbye.