Hurst shirt sale set to make a footy note in history

Today one of his collection – Geoff (now Sir Geoff) Hurst's spare 1966 England World Cup Final shirt – will go under the hammer and could fetch up to 8,000 at auction.

The long-sleeved red number ten shirt was Hurst's spare at Wembley on July 30, 1966, when England beat West Germany 4-2. He remains the only footballer to score a hat-trick in a World Cup Final.

Now Nora Cocker, 86, of Leeds, widow of the late England and Leeds United trainer and backroom stalwart, has decided to sell the shirt at Bonhams in Chester today.

Yesterday Mrs Cocker's son, Dave, 59, said: "Dad died in 1979 and I am unsure how he actually obtained the shirt after the game."

The Hurst shirt is among twenty football shirts, mostly from international matches, which Cocker collected over the years and which

Mrs Cocker and her family are now selling with the collection expected to fetch around 20,000 at the auction.

The sale is only taking place because Stockport County were a man short for a match against Accrington Stanley in the 1940s.

Stockport-born Cocker wasn't planning to become a footballer – he wanted to be a painter and decorator instead.

But when he attended a Stockport-Accrington game, County were a man short, so Cocker put on his boots and ended up playing for the club for the next eight years.

He later went on to become England and Leeds United's trainer, combining his work with England with a full-time coaching role at Leeds during the managerial reign of Don Revie.

He was one of England manager Alf Ramsey's key coaching aides during Bobby Moore and Co's march to glory at Wembley.

Cocker did not get a winner's medal, despite

being one of Ramsey's key backroom men during the tournament, but after a campaign by his family and supporters a medal was eventually awarded to him posthumously last year.

Cocker was only 55 when he collapsed and died in October 1979 while coaching Doncaster Rovers when former Leeds United star

Billy Bremner was in charge of the South Yorkshire club.

The England shirt Hurst wore in the final was later sold for 91,750 at Christie's in London on September 28, 2000.

Also coming up for sale at Bonhams in Chester today is the fifteen carat gold Italian Championship medal former Leeds United legend, John Charles won with Juventus in 1958. The championship medal is expected to sell for between 8,000 and 10,000.

Charles joined Leeds United on his seventeenth birthday, on December 27, 1948, after he was spotted playing in a Swansea park by Leeds scout Alf Pickard.

He became Britain's most expensive footballer in 1957, when Leeds sold him to the the Italian club for 65,000, which was then a British transfer record.

Between 1948 and 1957 he scored 150 goals in 297 matches for Leeds and

also starred for Wales.

When he moved to Italy, the 6ft 2in Charles was affectionately nicknamed "Il Gigante Buono" or The Gentle Giant.

He made such a dramatic and lasting impression in Italy that as recently as 1997 Juventus fans voted him the best-ever foreign player to appear for their team.

The former England footballer Jimmy Greaves said Charles would be in his dream World team and, in 2001, Charles became the first non Italian to be inducted to the Azzurri Hall of Fame.

Charles was 72 when he died on February 21, 2004.