George Cohen was a World Cup hero and England's greatest ever right-back

As the final German penalty condemned a nation to another round of soul-searching, George Cohen rose from his seat and shook his head.

In 1966, when Cohen played every minute of England's World Cup triumph, Sir Alf Ramsey's players were paid a £667 bonus after tax - and they were given a free raincoat each after the manager struck a private deal on Savile Row.

Thirty years of hurt later, Cohen was sitting next to an earnest Daily Mirror scribe at the Euro 96 semi-final where Gazza's despairing lunge, Darren Anderton hitting the post and the inevitable shoot-out persecution felt like a game show based on cruelty.

Now, he wondered, if he would live to see another England team wearing their raincoats like a king's robes. "Nobody seems to do 'nearly' or 'so close' better than us," he sighed.

Cohen's doleful remark proved sadly prophetic. The death of English football royalty, at the age of 83, leaves only two of Ramsey's Boys of '66 with us on planet earth - Sir Geoff Hurst and Sir Bobby Charlton.

And his passing brings back watery-eyed memories of an unforgettable night in the presence of greatness when Mirror Sport hosted a special episode of On The Buses.

This hack's task, should he choose to accept it, was simple: Round up as many of the England 1966 World Cup squad as possible, hire a coach, drive them to the gates of Wembley and watch the Euro 96 semi-final with them. Piece of cake. Thanks, Piers.

Queues had snaked round Wembley on the previous Sunday morning like the beachhead at Dunkirk as an estimated 250,000 fans clamoured for tickets. Even if I could persuade the Boys of 66 to be my guests, how the hell was I going to lay my hands on a fistful of gold dust?

Cohen was the first to accept the invitation - even though he was qualified to sit on the Queen's lap in the Royal Box. "You get me a ticket and I'll be there," he said in a reassuringly avuncular tone.

A well-known payment-processing corporation who sponsored the tournament came up trumps with a handful of seats and, sure enough, when the day arrived the cast who met up in the nearby Hilton hotel bar included Cohen, Hurst, Gordon Banks and Martin Peters.

Somehow, your correspondent managed to persuade the Metropolitan Police to escort a coach with the boarding card 'Daily Mirror England World Cup 1966 Squad' in the windscreen within 30 yards of the turnstiles.

As the England heroes disembarked, well-wishers rushed to shake their hands saying, "Thank you for what you did for your country." Cohen's humility, in the face of such adulation, will forever remain an object lesson in diffidence. Later, he told the tale of England's paltry £1,000-a-man bonus in 1966.

He said: "Bobby Moore, the captain, told us, 'Lads, the good news is the Football Association are giving us £22,000 if we win the World Cup. The bad news is they mean £1,000 each.' But I guess you can't put a price on glory, can you?"

Winning the World Cup ran in the Cohen family. His nephew, Ben, won rugby's holy grail with England on the night Jonny Wilkinson's drop goal pierced the night sky above Sydney like a golden meteorite.

And the Jules Rimet trophy was the only major hardware Cohen won in a 13-year career with Fulham spanning 459 appearances and 37 caps for the Three Lions.

George Best, whose twinkling feet left countless defenders in his wake, said Cohen was the best full-back ever to mark him. And Ramsey, never liberal with his praise, simply lauded him as "the country's greatest right-back."

Better late than never, Cohen was among five players from the class of 1966 to be awarded the MBE in 2000 after a sustained media campaign to recognise their achievement.

And in 2016, to mark the 50th anniversary of his finest hour, Fulham - whose previous owner somehow thought irrelevant pop star Michael Jackson had deserved one sooner - erected a statue of him at Craven Cottage.

Needless to say, the old boy was modest to a fault, saying: "I find it absolutely wonderful that they even thought I was worthy of it - especially as it was alongside Johnny Haynes, the greatest name in Fulham's history."

In his twilight years, Cohen was a stoical campaigner for research into dementia, which affected several of his 1966 compadres, and volunteered to donate his brain to medical science.

If they didn't already know it, before his grand gesture as an organ donor, they will find Cohen was a thoroughly good man as well as a national hero. As those fans said at the Euro 96 semi-final: Thank you for what you did for your country, George.