Come on Ben, you can be a World Cup winner too

George often calls his nephew before big matches to wish him luck. I just say: 'Alright son? Have a good game.' I can enjoy the spectacle and the athleticism and I know what they're supposed to do, but I'm no rugby expert."

He's avoided pestering Ben in Australia and, instead, leaves messages. "One of my sons spoke to him after the Wales game," he smiled. "Ben was waiting to go in for a team talk. I don't think they were too happy with the way they played."

George and his wife Daphne will be watching the TV in Tunbridge Wells on Sunday when the 24-yearold 6ft 3in Northampton wing takes the field against France in Sydney.

George will inevitably recall his own momentous days in the global spotlight when England's football team won the World Cup in 1966. Along the way they beat France 2-0 - a happy omen perhaps.

Like all of Sir Alf Ramsey's team, Cohen still takes inordinate pride in England's World Cup triumph at Wembley that summer. "Just like the rugby players, we were together a long time preparing for the World Cup," he recalled.

"So long, that even Jack Charlton became attractive! Fact is, we're all still friends and meet regularly." That victory in 1966 remains a unique achievement in English sport. But George knows that he and the rest of Ramsey's heroes may now have to make room for Ben, Jonny Wilkinson and Will Greenwood on the pedestal reserved for English sporting Gods.

"How would I feel? Pissed off !" laughed George.

"No I won't. I'd love to see him pick up the World Cup. I'd be absolutely delighted. He's a Cohen and I'm thrilled when anyone in the family does well. I just wish my brother was around to see his boy playing in the World Cup."

George Cohen, born in Kensington, spent his entire playing career with Fulham. He won 37 England caps at right-back, finishing on the losing side just three times, and was forced to retire at the age of 29 with a knee injury.

"I was playing the best football of my career," he recalled. "I was flying for those couple of seasons after the World Cup.

"It's a shame because today they'd probably handle that injury differently - an operation, a month's rest and I'd be playing again."

He tried a career as a property developer in Kent, but this ended in financial disaster. He then fought three separate battles against cancer. "It ended up in the pelvis," he said. "I had a hell of a time with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. But I have to say that my health at the moment is miraculously good."

He lost his mother when she was knocked down by a juggernaut and, more recently, his brother Peter. You think there might be just a hint of bitterness in him but, if there is, it's not apparent to the casual observer.

"I tell you what, though," he said. "The three blokes who killed my brother got between two and three years each. I thought that was outrageous."

Cohen, 64, has charted the peaks and troughs of his remarkable life in his recently re-published book, The Autobiography Of George Cohen. The original was shelved in a warehouse when the publishers went into liquidation and even now, with the book re-launched, a large part of his advance remains unpaid.

He's currently on a book-signing tour and has been surprised at the response he's received in the High Streets of the nation. It's a long time since that golden summer when he sat astride the sporting world.

But his fame has been as rocksteady as his performances for Fulham and England. Today, for instance, Ben is still known as George Cohen's nephew.

But, if England win the rugby version of the World Cup, George suspects that the tables will turn and in the eyes of today's sporting public he'll finally become Ben Cohen's uncle.

"If England get through to the final I'll have to think seriously about going to Sydney," he said. "I'd like to be there if we win it because Ben will be absolutely thrilled. He'll jump up and down for the first five minutes, but that'll be it. From then on it will be about deep, quiet selfsatisfaction.

"He's not the sort to throw his weight around. He's a very wellmannered young fellow. I'd give him a good slapping if he wasn't."