Norbert Peter Stiles was born on May 18, 1942 in the Collyhurst section of Manchester, England, then part of Lancashire, but since 1974 a part of the Metropolitan County of Greater Manchester. He was born in the cellar of the family home, during a Nazi air raid on Manchester. "Nobby" supported Manchester United as a boy, and at age 15, he was selected as a midfielder for England Schoolboys. In 1959, United offered him an apprenticeship.
He was short, even by the standards of the time, he was already missing his front teeth, and he was already going bald, which led him -- and later his United teammate Bobby Charlton -- to try a combover hairstyle. All of this combined to give him a troll-like look, scaring some defenders. The dentures he wore in games didn't help, and may even have inspired part of the look of Mike Myers' character Austin Powers.
But Matt Busby, the United manager who was still rebuilding the team following the Munich Air Disaster of 1958, couldn't afford to turn such a talent away on looks. He gave Nobby his debut in 1960, and became a pioneer in what's now known as the "holding midfielder" position.
But Busby was never shy about dropping a player he felt wasn't performing. Struggling in the League in the 1963 season, United still made it to the FA Cup Final at the old Wembley Stadium. Busby dropped Stiles from the squad, and it worked: United beat Leicester City, 3-1.
Nobby got the message, and got it together, both professionally and personally. A month after the Final, he married Kay Giles, sister of his then-teammate Johnny Giles. The Irish midfielder was soon sold to Leeds United, where Don Revie was building a great team that included Charlton's brother Jack. Nobby and Kay had 3 children.
Nobby helped United win the Football League Division One title in 1965, alongside such luminaries as Charlton, Scottish striker Denis Law, Northern Irish winger George Best, English centreback Bill Foulkes, and English goalkeeper Alex Stepney. He was key: As Best put it, "Every team has a hard man. We had Nobby Stiles."
He was first selected for the England national team on April 10, 1965, alongside the Charlton brothers, in a 2-2 draw with a Scotland team that included Law. This got the attention of manager Alf Ramsey, and he saw Stiles as, in his words, a spoiler. On February 23, 1966, Stiles scored the only goal of the game in an international friendly against West Germany at Wembley. Thinking it a sign of things to come, Ramsey selected him for the side in the upcoming World Cup on home soil.
In spite of a bad tackle against France midfielder Jacques Simon in the Group Stage, leading to calls for his drop, Ramsey stuck by Stiles, and he played every minute of every game England played in the tournament. In the Semifinal against Portugal, he guarded Eusébio, who was shaping up to be the hero of the tournament, limiting him to only a late penalty that he took, but he was not the player who won it.
England went on to beat West Germany in extra time in the Final, 4-2. When it was over, and the Jules Rimet Trophy was passed around, Nobby danced a jig with it, creating an iconic moment. Nobby and the other 21 players on the England team were national, and international, heroes.
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United won the League again in 1967, qualifying them for the European Cup. In 1956-57, Busby's young team, known as the Busby Babes, reached the Semifinal, before losing to Real Madrid. In 1957-58, they had just eliminated Red Star Belgrade in the Quarterfinal, when they made a refueling stop in Munich, and, upon takeoff, their plane crashed, killing 8 players and ending the careers of 2 others. Following Busby's rebuild, they got back into the tournament in 1965-66, and got to the Semifinals, but lost to Partizan Belgrade, Red Star's arch-rivals.
In 1967, Celtic of Glasgow, Scotland became the 1st British team to win the tournament. In 1967-68, United were looking to become the 1st English team to do it, especially since the Final was set to be at Wembley. In the 1st Round, they beat Hibernians, champions of Malta. In the 2nd Round, they beat the defending champions of Yugoslavia, FK Sarajevo. In the Quarterfinals, they beat the champions of Poland, Górnik Zabrze.
In the Semifinal, they played Real Madrid, already 6-time winners of the European Cup, and the team that ended United fans' dream in 1957. United won 1-0 in the 1st leg at Old Trafford. In the 2nd leg, at Estadio Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid, Real were 3-1 up, thus 3-2 up on aggregate, and looked like they were going to the Final. But goals by John Sadler in the 73rd minute and Foulkes in the 78th made it 3-3 in the game and 4-3 to United on aggregate. They were in the Final.
Their opponents were Benfica of Lisbon, Portugal, featuring Eusébio. They had won the tournament in 1961 and 1962, and lost in the Final 1963 and 1965. Again, Stiles managed to shut "The Black Panther" down. Bobby Charlton scored in the 53rd minute, but Jaime Graça equalized, and sent the game to extra time. At the start of extra time, United struck quickly: Best scored in the 92nd, and Brian Kidd, filling in for the injured Law, tallied in the 94th. That would be it: Manchester United won 4-1, and were the 1st English team to officially be Champions of Europe.
Time was marching on, though: Ramsey selected Stiles for the England team at Euro 1968, but instead made Alan Mullery of North London team Tottenham Hotspur his holding midfielder. This was one of the first in a series of bad guesses that made England fans wonder how Ramsey made so many good guesses through the 1966 World Cup Final. England lost to Yugoslavia in the Semifinal.
Ramsey again selected Stiles for the 1970 World Cup, but again as backup to Mullery. He didn't play in a single game, and England went out in the Quarterfinal to West Germany. Stiles never played for England again, and his 28 caps turned out to be the fewest selections for England among the 1966 team.
In 1971, United sold him to North Yorkshire team Middlesbrough. In 1973, Bobby Charlton retired, took the manager's job at Lancashire team Preston North End, and made Stiles a player-coach. In 1975 Charlton resigned when a player was sold without his say-so, and Stiles was named caretaker manager. He lasted a week before he decided he didn't want to work with people that Charlton couldn't work with. Things must have been worked out, because he returned to manage them from 1977 to 1981.
In 1981, he came to the North American Soccer League, and led the original version of the Vancouver Whitecaps until 1984, winning a Division title that season, and reaching the Semifinals of the Playoffs. But the League folded thereafter. He managed West Midlands team West Bromwich Albion, but was unsuccessful.
In 1989, he returned to Manchester United as youth team coach, working for manager Alex Ferguson, and guiding some of the players known as "Fergie's Fledglings": David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, and the brothers Gary and Phil Neville. These English boys would become the backbone of a team that led United to many trophies in the years to come. (Presuming you think they were won fairly. I'm not saying Stiles had anything to do with them not being won fairly.)
In 1968, after the European Cup win, he released a memoir, Soccer My Battlefield. In 2003, he released another, After the Ball.
His health began to fail. He auctioned off his winners' medals. In 2013, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. In 2016, he was diagnosed with dementia, making him one of many of the English players of the 1960s whose headings of the much-heavier leather balls of the time gave them brain injuries.
These would include his 1966 World Cup teammates Jack Charlton, Ray Wilson and Martin Peters; his 1970 teammate Jeff Astle of West Bromwich Albion; and Gerd Müller of the West Germany team that eliminated them in 1970. (Müller was not on the '66 team that lost the Final to England.) Not long ago, Bobby Charlton was diagnosed with it as well.
Nobby Stiles died this past Friday, October 30, 2020, from the combined effects of cancer and dementia. He was 78.
Manchester United's official Twitter feed: "Nobby was a titan of the club’s history, cherished for his heart and personality on and off the pitch. He will be sorely missed by us all."
Johnny Giles, United teammate and brother-in-law: "What a great lad. Honestly, the best. My sister married a good ‘un, and how he loved her."
Johnny Giles and Nobby Stiles
Bobby Charlton: "I've had the privilege to have been in their company many times. The two of them are greats. I wish Bobby well and my thoughts also go out to Nobby's family. We're all saddened by that news."
With Nobby's death, there are now:
* 5 players from Manchester United's 1965 Football League Champions: Bobby Charlton, Denis Law, Pat Crerand, John Aston and Willie Anderson.
* 6 players from their 1967 Football League Champions: Charlton, Law, Crerand, Aston, Anderson and Alex Stepney.
* 6 players from their 1968 European Cup winners: Charlton, Crerand, Aston, Stepney, Brian Kidd and David Sadler. Law was injured, and did not play.
* And 4 players from the England team that won the 1966 World Cup: Bobby Charlton, George Cohen, Geoff Hurst and Roger Hunt. Jimmy Greaves, Ron Flowers, Terry Paine, Ian Callaghan and George Eastham are still alive, but did not play in the Final.