George Cohen

Fulham

Cohen was a one-club footballer, joining Fulham professionally in 1956 and remaining there until retirement through injury 13 years later in March 1969. Fulham had been relegated to the Second Division the season before he retired as a player and did not return to the top flight for 33 years. He ended his career with 459 appearances for the club, a figure surpassed by only five other players in Fulham's history. As a full-back he also managed to score six League goals for Fulham.

England

Blackpool's Jimmy Armfield played in the 1962 World Cup in Chile. In April 1964, however, Armfield won his 41st cap in a 1–0 defeat to an Alan Gilzean of Scotland goal at Hampden Park. England coach Alf Ramsey duly tried out Cohen for his international debut a month later in a 2–1 win over Uruguay. With Armfield suffering an injury – badly timed with the World Cup imminent – Cohen went on to play in 21 of the next 23 internationals. Armfield managed two more caps in preparation for the 1966 tournament after regaining his fitness, but Cohen was Ramsey's first choice by the time the England-hosted competition started. Ramsey's team played without conventional wingers, allowing extra strength in midfield and relying on young, stamina-based players like Martin Peters and Alan Ball to drift from centre to flank and back again as required. When these players were occupied in more central positions, or chasing high up the flank and needing support, attacking full-backs…

Following his retirement, Cohen coached the Fulham youth team and the England under-23 team for a time. He also briefly managed non-league Tonbridge, who he led to victory in the Kent Senior Cup in 1974–75.

In 2003, Cohen published George Cohen: My Autobiography. (ISBN 9780755313976). He was a frequent guest at functions around the country as well as at Craven Cottage raising money for cancer charities. He hosted a luncheon before every home game at Craven Cottage in the George Cohen Restaurant. In 2010, Cohen criticized changes to the design of footballs following the intense criticism of the Adidas Jabulani used at the 2010 World Cup. He was quoted: "Designers have constantly tried to create more goals by using lighter and lighter balls. It was thought they would fly further and everyone loves to see a 30-yard screamer bend into the top corner. But things have gone too far." Cohen was also known for being vocal in his demands for a public inquiry into dementia in football, following research that suggested ex-professionals were more than three times at risk of getting the condition.

Cohen was born and raised in Fulham, London, where his Irish-born mother, Catherine (née Gibbs), was a stores manager at the local Lots Road power station and his father, Louis (known as Harry) Cohen, was a gas fitter. Though of Jewish heritage on his father's side, with some of his family originally from Ukraine, he was brought up in the Church of England. He married his wife Daphne in 1962. They had two sons. He had a history of bowel cancer, being first diagnosed with the condition in 1976. He was ultimately declared cancer-free in 1990. His nephew Ben Cohen is an English former rugby union player and Rugby World Cup winner with England in 2003. Cohen died at home in Mayfield, East Sussex, on 23 December 2022, aged 83. He had recently suffered a stroke and also lived with chronic osteomyelitis He was known as one of the few "greatest one-trophy wonders", winning solely a World Cup winner's medal in his career.