Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Small, short-sighted, a denture-wearer, Stiles had a lot to overcome.. but this ordinary lad conquered the world
It remains one of the most iconic images in the history of British sport. The small, squinting Nobby Stiles, red socks rolled down to his ankles, jigging around in circles on the outside of the Wembley pitch, a toothless, joyous grin splitting his boyish face, waving the Jules Rimet trophy in one hand and clutching his dentures in the other as Bobby Moore playfully patted him on the head.
That image struck a chord with millions of us watching at home on that glorious World Cupwinning day back in 1966 and, in many ways, meant more than any of the others.
Because this ordinary lad from northern back streets, who always seemed a bit-part player among the superstars of Manchester United and England, was one of us.
He wasn’t as debonair or skilful as a Bobby Moore, not as well-known outside these shores as Bobby Charlton, just a talented and hugelydriven player who gave everything he had for the cause.
And yet there he was on the biggest of stages, revelling in a dream he never surely imagined would come true, his childlike disbelief telling all of us other boys that we, too, could conquer the world.
It’s a feeling that has endured down the years as Nobby’s dance entered popular folklore.
Stiles admitted in 2002: “Wherever I go, what I did means so much to people. Kids of my grandkids’ age come up to me and go: ‘Hey, you, you’re the fella with no teeth who danced round Wembley, aren’t you?’ In a way, you end up belonging to everyone.”
It is sad that since that afternoon, 54 years ago, no England team has got close to achieving what Sir Alf Ramsey’s team did, but even sadder that Stiles is the seventh member of that starting eleven to die, after captain Bobby Moore, Alan Ball, Ray Wilson, Gordon Banks, Martin Peters and, recently, Jack Charlton.
And it is disturbing to many that yet another player from a generation who headed wet, heavy leather balls on a daily basis has been taken by dementia at the relatively young age of 78.
But as was evidenced in the gushing tributes that flowed yesterday, Nobby Stiles was a wellloved character who left an indelible mark on the nation.
Gary Lineker’s description of a modest man who “had a heart that was even bigger than the gap in his teeth,” was spot-on. Nobby was a small man with a huge personality. I saw him a couple of times at functions and he was always warm and down-to-earth.
But it was the first time I met him, in my early-20s, at a petrol station after watching Liverpool beat his beloved Manchester United that showed the man’s calibre. Our car was full of Liverpool fans giving him plenty of stick and, rather than storm off, he took it all in good humour and gave a bit back, finishing with the words: “We’re all football fans though aren’t we, lads, and that’s all that matters. Get home safely.”
Norbert Peter Patrick Paul Stiles was born on May 18, 1942, in Collyhurst, a working class district to the north of Manchester city
FAMILY’S TEAM PHOTO (l to r) granddaughter Megan, Nobby, daughter-in-law Mary, wife Kay and granddaughter Catlin centre. His mother Kitty, who worked as a machinist, gave birth to him in the cellar of the family home during an air raid.
In his 2003 autobiography, he wrote that he had been born “a half-blind dwarf who was bombed by the Germans and run over by a trolley bus when he was one”. A comic line his fellow Mancunian Bernard Manning would have been proud of.
Nobby attended the local St Patrick’s Catholic P rimar y School and became an altar boy but his passion from an early age was football, and at 15 he was playing for England Schoolboys.
Two years later he realised his childhood dream by joining his beloved Manchester United as an apprentice. “My father Charlie was an undertaker in the area we lived and when we got the call to go to Old Tr a f f o r d to s i g n my contract, he said: ‘Jump in son and I will take you down there.’ Now ‘jump in son’ meant in his hearse,” wrote Nobby.
S mal l , s h o r t - si g h t e d , we a r i n g d e n tu re s a n d balding in his early-20s, Stiles admitted he had a lot of obstacles to overcome to make it to the top. But make it he did, winning two league titles and the European Cup with Manchester United. He remains one of only three Englishmen, alongside Bobby Charlton and Liverpool’s Ian Callaghan, to win both the World and European Cups.
Stiles’s simple passing game and ballwinning skills saw him grow into a fearless midfield player, the type all the stars in the team need to make them shine. Today we refer to such a player as a “ratter”. Back then they were called a “Nobby The Toothless Tiger”.
After leaving Old Trafford he ended his playing days with brief spells at Middlesbrough and Preston North End, before moving into an unsuccessful coaching career which left him so depressed he admitted contemplating suicide as he drove his car down the M6 in 1989.
In 2000, Stiles was awarded an MBE after a
Nobby was a talented and hugely driven player who gave everything for the cause
paign demanding that five e 1966 team who had never n officially decorated, should onoured. iles married Kay Giles in 1963, a sister of team-mate nny Giles, and he lived in nchester all of his life, having e children. nd it was for their benefit he sold his World Cup and European Cup ning medals at auction in 2010, raising more n £200,000. is natural wit and wealth of stories made a hit on the after-dinner speaking circuit re deteriorating health eventually took him of the public eye.
2013 he was diagnosed with prostate cer and three years later the family ounced that he was suffering from advanced dementia. Sadly, he was too ill to attend a celebration dinner to mark the 50th anniversary of England’s 1966 World Cup win.
But his contribution to that greatest of English sporting achievements will never be forgotten.
As Baddiel and Skinner sang in Football’s Coming Home we all still hold indelible images in our mind’s eye of “Bobby belting the ball and Nobby dancing.”
Nobby was once asked how he would like to be remembered, and simply replied: “As a happy person.”
That iconic image from 1966 has ensured that. But more importantly Nobby will be remembered for making a lot of people happy.