The first England cap won by West Ham’s 1966 World Cup hero Sir Geoff Hurst, which he sold for £3,290 sixteen years ago, is up for sale again – but this time is set to fetch nearer £6,000 at an auction.

Sir Geoff sold his cap at Christie’s on September 28, 2000. Now it is expected to sell for between £5,000 and £7,000 at Graham Budd Auctions in London next Tuesday.

The striker was 24 when he was awarded the cap for his debut for England – against West Germany at Wembley on February 22, 1966 – just five months before he made history by becoming the first player to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final, also against West Germany at Wembley, on July 30, 1966.

The 74-year-old sold many of his football mementoes at the auction in September 2000 for more than a quarter of a million pounds, including the red number-ten England shirt he wore in that historic 1966 World Cup final, which alone sold for £91,750.

West Ham are thought to have paid Sir Geoff around £150,000 for his 1966 World Cup winners’ medal.

Between February 1966 and April 1972, Sir Geoff scored 24 goals in 49 matches for England.

For West Ham, he scored 180 goals in 411 Football League appearances.

In their book, West Ham: A Complete Record, John Northcutt and Roy Shoesmith said: “He was a pioneering near-post goalscorer, he unselfishly ran and provided for others, his penalty-taking style was typical of the way he reacted in the area – powerful and explosive rather than subtle and dainty.”

Father-of-three Sir Geoff was belatedly knighted in 1998 and he is also among a comparatively small number of footballers to be invited to appear in Who’s Who.