Fulham have lost a genuine great in George Cohen. Legend is an overused term, particularly at present, but it it is the only appropriate way to describe a man who played 459 games for his boyhood club and was a key member of the only England team to ever win the World Cup. Just how revered George was within the game is evident from the warmth of the tributes that came in immediately after yesterday’s sad news was announced: Sir Geoff Hurst tweeted movingly about the loss of his great friend and few could disagree with Gary Lineker, when the former England centre forward wrote that Cohen ‘will always have footballing immortality’.

The thing is, you’d never know that George had reached such remarkable heights when you met him. He would talk about his playing career with you if you asked, but it wouldn’t be what he led with. If you like me, you were never fortunate enough to see him represent Fulham or England, then the memories you have are of an absolute gentleman, who hosted matchday hospitality at Craven Cottage. George and his beloved wife Daphne, who was almost the sole subject of a superb speech he gave when he was granted the freedom of Hammersmith and Fulham by the local Council a few years ago, were a wonderful pair of hosts, who made sure that you had a special day at the Cottage.

I was unsure of whether to write about my own memories of George given that seemed so trivial when placed in the context of what he achieved, but I do feel as though they tell you a lot about the man he was. My sister and I inherited our Fulham fanaticism from family members who are no longer with us. We have both, since university, lived in the north east of England – and whilst we are greatly looking forward to watching Fulham at St. James’ Park in January – simple geography makes trips to our spiritual home somewhat challenging. It was always something we did as a family over Christmas: revisiting the parts of Fulham that my Dad remembered from his childhood and taking in either a home or away match, or both, if we were lucky.

My younger sister Keira is perhaps even more Fulham mad than me, although it is close. When she turned eighteen, a group of my relatives had the idea of giving her a special day at Craven Cottage. Thanks to their generosity, I was able to book some matchday hospitality. Just watching the football in comfort would have been enough, but we were astonished on arriving at the ground to be greeted by George Cohen. Both of us were pretty star-struck. I eventually plucked up the courage to tell George that we had been brought up on stories of the great Fulham sides of the 50s and 60s from my father and grandparents. We had heard what a wonderful player he was. He smiled and said, without missing a beat, ‘Where do I send the cheques?’

Almost immediately, George had instructed a club photographer to take a picture of our little group and that photo still hangs proudly in the front room of Keira’s flat. He and Daphne were generous with their time – and celebrating a late Fulham winner in their company remains a memory that my sister and I share fondly to this day. George even spent some time long after the final whistle telling us stories about his Fulham career, playing with Johnny Haynes, being told off by Bobby Moore and, of course, winning the World Cup. The tales he told and the way he told them live with you forever.

There is a postscript to our wonderful day at Craven Cottage that doesn’t seem anything like as long ago as it actually was. A couple of years later, Keira and I were waiting outside the Hammersmith End for the gates to open having left Newcastle on a very early train to making another Christmas pilgrimage to the Cottage. We were pondering on whether to go for a coffee having wondered along Stevenage Road, when we spotted George and Daphne heading in the opposite direction. Being a bit older and bolder, Keira quickly reminded George of how she had spent her eighteenth birthday. He smiled again, swapped a bit of small talk about the match with us, posed for a photo (which is now in my flat) and signed Keira’s home shirt. He didn’t have to do any of that; it was just the gentleman he was.

I wasn’t lucky enough to watch him play in person, but you can see from the video footage available, just how much of an athlete he was. Though, tinged with sadness, I’ve enjoyed reading some of the tributes that spoke to the character of the man we were fortunate to spend a couple of hours with one winter’s afternoon by the Thames. Simon Burnton’s gorgeous Guardian piece begins by with Cohen’s reaction after a frustrating England under-23 tour to Eastern Europe in 1963: ‘That’s me finished,’ he asserted. As Alf Ramsey later recalled, ‘how wrong he was’. In a terrific Times’ obituary, Cohen’s fondness for a tackle is recalled with the revelation that he floored the England manager in a warm-up ahead of a game against Spain a year before the World Cup. Ramsey told him: ‘George, if I had another f***ing full back you wouldn’t be playing tomorrow.’

The Times’ former football correspondent David Miller describes him as ‘innovative and as reliable as the Niagara falls’ before highlighting the value of his overlapping runs, one of which created the winning goal against Portugal in the 1966 World Cup semi-final. One of the doyens of sports writing, Jeff Powell, uses the pages of the Daily Mail to hail Cohen as a tough tackler who ‘was the perfect foil to Bobby Moore’. The pair become close friends – and George raised so much money for the fund set up in honour of the former England captain, both before and after he beat cancer himself. He overcome several family tragedies – rightly being proud of his nephew Ben, who won the rugby World Cup with England in 2003 – and was never anything other than happy with his lot, even though it shamefully took the FA and the government until the millennium to honour George and five of his fellow World Cup winners with honours.

Some of you will be able to recall the brilliant memories from George’s playing days. Those who got to see him during a remarkable thirteen-year playing career were truly blessed. The rest of us will have to settle for the pleasure of speaking with him. It was some consolation. Fulham fans can take great heart from having this wonderful man associated with our football club. Humble and humorous, he was a wonderful ambassador for the team he loved. Thanks for sharing all your memories with us, George.