Nobby Stiles: the “half-blind dwarf” and football legend

And so it proved, said Robert Kitson in The

Guardian. England eased to a 34-5 victory in Rome, earning an all-important bonus point in the final quarter when an alert Tom Curry was able to “steal down the blindside”. It was a far from vintage performance from Eddie Jones’s men, but it proved “just enough”. France’s 35-27 victory over Ireland later that evening wasn’t nearly emphatic enough for them to overtake England (they would have needed a 31-point winning margin to do so; Ireland, by contrast, would have triumphed with a seven-point victory). It’s of course never a bad thing to win a title, but in truth England had little reason to celebrate, said Stephen Jones in The Sunday Times. France were “unquestionably” the best team in the competition, only failing to win all five of their matches because of Mohamed Haouas’s 37th-minute sending off against Scotland – a match they’d dominated up to that point. And England were “massively disappointing” in Rome, earning a victory whose points margin flattered them: they were “ragged, fitful, poor up

Nobby Stiles, who died last week at the age of

78 after a struggle with dementia, was a football legend, albeit an incongruous one, said Jeff Powell in the Daily Mirror. He’s best remembered as the man who “warmed the cockles of a nation” by dancing across the turf after England’s World

Cup victory in 1966, one hand clutching the

Jules Rimet Trophy, the other his just-removed dentures. Indeed, Stiles didn’t look anything like what we expect footballers to look like, said Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail. Balding, skinny and missing his front teeth (the legacy of a teenage scuffle), he was the myopic son of a Manchester undertaker. He once described himself as a “half-blind dwarf”. Yet rather than denting his popularity, his appearance made him all the more loved. A highly likeable and jovial figure, he was the “everyman” of England’s triumphant team.

However, Stiles’s “cheeky chappy” reputation shouldn’t blind us to his genuine skills as a footballer, said The Times. The “toothless tiger”, as Stiles was known, was a pivotal member both of England’s 1966 team and the Manchester United side that won the European Cup in 1968. While he generally played in defence for his club, for England he assumed what now seems a very modern role – that of holding midfielder. Stiles had “notable success” in this role, most impressively in the World Cup semi-final, when he completely shut out Portugal’s talismanic striker Eusébio, said Paul Wilson in The Observer. Even so, his effectiveness as a footballer undoubtedly owed more to aggression than skill. “Your studs are your best friends out there,” he would say, and upon being told by Alf Ramsey in 1966 to take Eusébio “out of the game”, he is rumoured to have replied: “Do you mean

Nonetheless, Jones shouldn’t feel too complacent about where his side are now at, said Clive Woodward in the Daily Mail. England’s power-based game may work against most teams, but it is unlikely to trouble the very best – New Zealand, for one, South Africa for another. What worried me about their Six Nations performance was that they don’t appear to have progressed as a team since their disappointing final in last autumn’s World Cup. Jones should rethink his team’s strategy – and the Autumn Nations Cup, which begins this month, is the perfect place to start.

Stiles: the “everyman”

just this game, Alf? Or for life?” He played in an era when players were allowed to get away with more than they are today, and it’s fair to say that without making “drastic changes”, he would have struggled in the modern game.