Nobby couldn’t work out why Denis wouldn’t talk to him at wembley
Wembley wizard Jim Mccalliog regularly came up against Nobby Stiles – who died, aged 78, on Friday – for club and country in the 1960s.
He famously scored the decisive goal when Scotland beat the World Cup winners 3-2 on their own turf in 1967 to hand them their first defeat since Bobby Moore lifted the Jules Rimet trophy.
Bobby Brown’s side outplayed 10 of the team which had beaten West Germany in that Final, and Mccalliog – making his international debut at the age of 20 – remembers it as though it was just yesterday.
“Nobby was Denis Law’s team-mate at Manchester United – but Denis was also his hero,” he said.
“As the teams got ready to walk out on to the pitch, Nobby looked over at him and tried to say hello.
“Denis just blanked him. Then, as we lined up on the pitch, Nobby waved at him – and he ignored him again.
“Nobby was crushed because he didn’t speak a word to him.
“Yet, at full-time, Denis was the first to jump on Nobby, shouting: ‘Nae luck, wee man!’
“Denis loved Nobby to bits, but he hated losing to England more than anything.
“So he had no pals in their team when he was playing against them.”
Every team had their own hard man in those days – Chelsea had Ron Harris, Liverpool had Tommy Smith and Leeds United had Norman Hunter, and there were plenty others.
But Stiles was the quiet assassin for United, and Mccalliog insists that, for all his winner’s medals, he never got the credit he deserved for his footballing ability.
“He was seriously underrated as a player,” he said.
“But the first two managerial knights, Alf Ramsey and Matt Busby, rated him very highly.
“When England played Portugal in the World Cup semi-final, Ramsey told Nobby to shadow Eusebio wherever he went.
“It was between Eusebio and Pele as to who was the best player on the planet at that time.
“But the only kick he got that night was the penalty he scored for a late consolation.
“Two years later, when United beat Benfica to win the European Cup, Sir Matt gave him the same job with the same result.
“In that England midfield, Nobby did the dirty work for the others, making the tackles, winning the ball and then giving it to Bobby Charlton or Martin Peters.
“Nobby could control the ball and pass it as well as anyone – but he was also Bobby’s minder.
“I remember one match when I was playing for Sheffield Wednesday against United at Hillsborough, and George Best had one of those afternoons where no one could get the ball off him.
“The pitch looked like a war zone. Our defenders were lying on the deck after George had turned them inside out.
“I turned to Nobby and said: ‘I wish we had him in our team’.
“But he was too busy shouting: ‘Pass the ball, you greedy Irish so-and-so!’.
“That was pure Nobby, though. It was all about the team for him.”