Where have all the playmakers gone? A son of '66 laments

The Interview - George Cohen: Old boy of that World Cup summer is still in fine form. Steve Tongue hears his thoughts on a game whose riches do not provoke envy

While 10 years of Premiership football were being celebrated at a glitzy bash in Marylebone last week, not far away a smaller gathering was listening entranced to tales of a different era: of Nobby and Sir Alf; Johnny Haynes and Tommy Trinder; above all, of 30 July 1966.

The 10 living Englishmen to have won a World Cup final have become used to singing for their supper, though they are not always accorded the deserved respect. The Daily Mail, mean-spiritedly, once questioned their right to do so at all, forgetting, perhaps, how shabbily their endeavours had been rewarded at the time – a bonus of £1,000 each from the Football Association, who then handed over more than 200 times as much in corporation tax on their profits from the event. A personal memory is of turning up at Fairfield Halls, Croydon, for the "30th Anniversary World Cup Winners' Tour", listed somewhere between "Big Time Wrestling, with Cyanide Cooper" and the Moldovan National Opera, and starring Jack Charlton, Martin Peters and "George Curry".

George Cohen – for it was him – guffawed with self-deprecatory laughter at the story last week. Before, during and after a lunch organised by the Sports Journalists' Association (formerly the Sports Writers' Association), he was in fine form and fighting fit, which was particularly good to see. As his autobiography*, published this week, reveals in sometimes harrowing detail, his football these days might well have been confined, like that of his former captain Bobby Moore, to the Elysian Fields.

Three times he has beaten cancer, an opponent unnerving and tenacious enough to make West Germany look a pushover. The lesson he has learnt is, "don't take yourself too bloody seriously", which with even the best intentions was not easy amid the subsequent traumas of losing a beloved mother, run down by a lorry, and then his brother Peter, father to the England rugby international Ben.

For the family to have produced internationals – and perhaps World Cup winners – in two different sports suggests there is something in the Cohen genes. George insists that in his case, hard work was a more fundamental requirement. What he always had was pace and stamina, in sufficient quantities to give few wingers any chance in a direct sprint, and to establish a reputation as one of the first overlapping full-backs; he describes his 1966 team-mate Alan Ball as "the best outside-right I ever played in front of".

The need to work at his game made him envious of those with natural ability, and annoyed with those of similar gifts who did not make the most of them. "I was brought up with Johnny Haynes, Jimmy McIlroy, John White, Johnny Giles, players who could think their way round a football pitch. Later on there was [Glenn] Hoddle. And Paul Gascoigne had flair, vision, everything – except discipline. As Alf Ramsey said of him, 'Nutcase, but a bloody good player'. In football, you can eat, you can drink, you can womanise, but one thing you can't do is lose your sleep. If you're getting in at one in the morning, you can't do that. This guy never went on the pitch-fit. The worst piece of discipline I've ever seen was his foul against Nottingham Forest in the 1991 FA Cup final, which ruined his career. It was absurd."

Although far from an old codger refusing to give credit to anything or anyone of a later generation, he is not much impressed by the current England crop, whom wide-eyed optimists had fancied to emulate the boys of '66 in south-east Asia last summer: "I read a lot about all the wonderful young talent, but I haven't seen it. I've seen young Rooney, who looks good at the moment. But we haven't got anybody to make the play, a Bobby Charlton or a Haynes, so we're basically reduced to long balls. I've seen the young fella [Steven] Gerrard hit 50-yard balls, which work against bad teams. But generally speaking, we ain't playing against bad teams."

David Beckham worshippers should look away now. "To be honest, I'm not a great Beckham fan. I've talked to a lot of full-backs of my era who say they would have their easiest afternoon ever against him. That's not quite fair, because he doesn't try to be a winger. He's got a wonderful right foot but I don't consider him to be a world-class player. Someone at a Fulham do asked me to compare him to Johnny Haynes, and I said one's Stoke Newington and the other's Mayfair.

"Can we win the World Cup again? We have a problem with games outside our own hemisphere. Even Japan was bloody hot. We only produced one game there, against Argentina, under cover in controlled conditions. The rest of our games were diabolical – Nigeria was sleep-time, absolutely shocking. Next time, it's in Germany and they'll produce a team. We won 5-1 in Munich when we should have been 2-0 down in 10 minutes. We had five chances and took them, one of which was offside. So I can't see us winning the next World Cup, and with the one after that in the southern hemisphere, I can't see us winning there either."

On the amounts of money his successors earn, Cohen, 63, is more generous, possibly because of the perspective offered by his personal traumas: "My philosophy is that I don't believe in eating your heart out about something you can't have. I had my time and was well taken care of by Fulham, who were a good club to me. I couldn't complain. I know one or two people have chips on their shoulders, but I haven't the time or the inclination to worry about what other people earn."

Cohen was close to becoming a millionaire himself, though not through football. At 29, his career was suddenly ended, by one twist in mid-air against Liverpool. Success in the property business eventually offered the chance of making some real money, but it all came crashing down because of one failed planning permission. A beautiful family home had to be sold and a decent pension was only secured at a time of financial insecurity by selling his World Cup medal. Fulham, to their credit, bought it, and he still attends games as a match-day host. Plenty of opportunity there for a few stories, and what people want to hear about most, of course, is English football's summer of love, 37 years ago.

No audience is disappointed. "After the first game, against Uruguay, the press gave us a drubbing; the game was bloody awful because they just came to defend. But I thought things were coming together once we changed from 4-3-3 to 4-4-2 [before the quarter-final], which gave us more width and a bit of security.

"I considered Argentina the best team in the competition but they resorted to the worst excesses I'd ever seen on a football pitch. And it didn't help them any. Rattin being sent off was wonderful for us, because he was such an outstanding player. In the semi-final Nobby Stiles had what I think was the best game he ever played, marking Eusebio out of the game. These days he would probably get a red card every game. But Nobby had brains, he didn't try to do anything he wasn't capable of doing. He won the ball and knocked it off to Bobby Charlton.

"Nobby was a marvellous guy, the butt of all the humour in the squad. On the morning of the final I saw him at the door of the hotel, going out to find a Catholic church to pray and confess – in Golders Green! I left him to it. Martin Peters likes to tell the story of how at 2-1 he thought he'd scored the winning goal in the World Cup final. Then the Germans equalise with a handball, Geoff goes and gets a hat-trick and a knighthood, so Martin's well pissed off."

It was the only thing Cohen ever won in a career cut off in 1969. He was the first of the Wembley heroes to finish playing, and the only one never to sample European football. Fulham did not go in for that sort of thing; in Cohen's last nine seasons, their highest position was 15th. Tapped up at various times by Everton, Arsenal and others, he stayed at the Cottage and never really regretted it: "We used to draw crowds just to see us get out of trouble ever year. It was hard work but perhaps it did us good." Another era? Another world.

And what else has he learnt after 13 years of football, even longer fighting cancer of the stomach, and now 13 since being discharged? "I think I've become far more tolerant. I've discovered that the pursuit of happiness is far better than the pursuit of money. And I know this isn't very macho, but if I could have my time over again, I'd only do it if I could marry the same woman. While I was ill, my wife was magnificent: her own father died, but she took care of the business and two young boys and ran the house. The women are the strong ones in the world, you know. We men are here as incidentals." World Cup winners or not.

"My Autobiography" by George Cohen (Greenwater Press, £17.99)

Biography: George Reginald Cohen MBE

Born: 22 October 1939 in Kensington.

Playing position: Right-back.

Club career: Fulham (1956-69) 461 games, six goals. FA Cup semi-final 1958 and 1962. Promoted to First Division 1959. Relegated 1968.

England career: 37 games, 0 goals. Debut 6 May 1964 v Uruguay at Wembley. Last game 22 November 1967 v Northern Ireland at Wembley. Member of 1966 England squad who won the World Cup, at Wembley.

Also: Awarded MBE with Alan Ball, Roger Hunt, Nobby Stiles and Ray Wilson in 2000, ensuring that all 11 players from the World Cup-winning team were honoured. Three have been knighted. Is the uncle of Ben Cohen, the England rugby union international wing.