Sir Geoff Hurst's emotional letter to Gareth Southgate

Legend Sir Geoff Hurst has written an emotional letter to Gareth Southgate following England’s best performance in the World Cup since 1990.

The 1966 icon, who remains the only player to ever score a World Cup hat-trick, says the Three Lions manager united an entire nation.

In the personal letter he has asked to be published, Hurst says people who had no interest in football are falling in love with the game.

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But the thankful 76-year-old wants this year’s World Cup in Russia to be just the start.

Here is exactly what the former West Ham and Stoke centre-forward wrote to Southgate as he returns to the UK on Sunday afternoon.

Dear Gareth,

First of all, congratulations on your performances in the World Cup. The way England played and the way in which you and your players conducted yourselves lifted the mood of the nation. You made England fall in love with football again and for that we’re all very grateful.

It’s not just fans who responded positively to the team’s performances in Russia, even those with no idea about football fell under the spell of the national game.

I went to see my barber a few days ago — he knows nothing about football, he’s into dogs and Crufts. I don’t think he’d ever seen a match in his life, but as he cut my hair he was telling me about the importance of Kieran Trippier at the back and praising Kane like he’d been watching football for the last 20 years. He loved it. We all did.

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There was a very funny moment when my wife, Judith, went to get her phone upgraded recently and when the guy in the phone shop realised she was my wife, he wanted a selfie with her. The family had a really good laugh at that.

Judith’s very down-to-earth and not at all interested in fame, but there she was, starring in a selfie because her husband won a football match 52 years ago. It shows the power of the sport. Make sure you warn your wife that everyone will want selfies with her, Gareth!

A lot of people have asked me whether this tournament reminded me of 1966. I have to say, yes — a lot of this England team remind me of us back in ’66, and you remind me very much of Sir Alf Ramsey. He was a master at building the team and getting the attitude of the players right — two things that were important in our victory.

Team spirit and camaraderie are vital. You can’t win without them. That might be hard for people who haven’t played sport at the highest level to understand, but it’s true. You can’t win with a group of individuals, you can only win with a team. Alf built positive qualities in us in ’66 and made sure we were united as a team, and now you have done the same and came so close to emulating our victory. I’m sure it will lead to a better, more successful future for the national side.

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But it wasn’t just what you did off the pitch that reminded me of Alf. He was a great manager who believed in having a great system on the pitch and you were the same. Alf’s strategy was to find players who could play to his system. He always said: ‘I don’t always pick the best players, I pick the best players for the game I want us to play.’

You did the same. The move to playing three at the back, moving Kyle Walker from right-back to right-centre, three in the middle, three at the back and obviously giving space for Kieran Trippier to play as he did demanded a certain sort of player.

When you left out Joe Hart, our most senior player, along with injury-prone Jack Wilshere, people weren’t happy but you were right. You stuck to your guns and went for the players YOU wanted for YOUR system. Just like Alf.

You also deserve huge praise for picking Harry Kane as your captain — he’s a grounded guy, like Bobby Moore. Maybe one day he will be as loved and respected as Bobby Moore was, or even as famous as Bobby Charlton. There was a time when most people in the world knew Bobby’s name. Even if they could speak no other words of English, they knew ‘Bobby Charlton’.

I met Harry when I played walking football against him and I liked him a lot. He’s decent and respectful… though I didn’t like the fact that he scored six goals while I did nothing except fall over!

I watched the off-the-field developments with interest and I have to admit that it made me laugh when I saw the players on floating unicorns in the swimming pool.

Soon after seeing the pictures, I went to visit my youngest granddaughter, Rose, for the day. My daughter had just bought her a unicorn, so she was playing with that at the same time as our best footballers were riding on theirs. It did make me wonder!

But of course you knew what you were doing and you were right to embrace modern techniques and sports psychology ideas — they didn’t have them when I played, back in medieval times!

So, what now then? First of all, I hope you get all the help and support you need to develop from this. The team have shown great promise and you need everyone to get behind you as you build on it. You had 30 per cent of the players in the Premier League to choose from because the rest of the players are from other countries, that must make life very difficult for you.

I hope the Premier League club owners see how important international football is for the country, and I hope we see more home-grown players at our leading clubs.

I’m pleased about the break in the season. That will make a difference, and anything else the FA can do with the Premier League to help the national team has got to be done now.

My big wish for the future is that if you’re a Liverpool fan or a Manchester United fan or West Ham fan, you remember that it’s the national team’s success that is the most important thing for the country — that’s what brings us together and has us singing in the street and waving flags.

The more investment we can put into developing our own players, the better. If Wembley is indeed sold off, let’s make sure that all of the money is used to develop youth football, and is ploughed into better facilities and into attracting and coaching players.

Think of how many qualified coaches, facilities, and opportunities for kids we would have. Let’s not look back in 10 years and say where did the money go? That would be a disaster.

We have a fantastic opportunity now. The country is in love with international football. Let’s not waste this moment.

Gareth, thank you for everything you’ve done. It’s been great for the country and great for English football. You’ve made us guys from ’66 feel very proud and very nostalgic and most importantly — I can now talk about football with my barber!

Yours, Geoff