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Nobby Stiles
| Category: | Male Player |
| Year Inducted: | 2007 |
Profile by Robert Galvin, the author of Football's Greatest Heroes, the official book of the National Football Museum Hall of Fame:
When Nobby Stiles joyfully placed the Jules Rimet trophy on the top of his head whilst performing a victory jig at Wembley Stadium late on a summer's afternoon in 1966, he created one of the most abiding images in the history of English football.
A fiercely committed ball-winner for England and Manchester United, Stiles shares with Bobby Charlton the distinction of being the only Englishmen to be on the winning side in a World Cup and European Cup final.
In 1968, Stiles returned to Wembley Stadium to help his beloved United, the team he supported as a boy, defeat Benfica in Europe's premier club competition.
‘As a defender, Nobby had a kind of sixth sense for danger and he would nip it in the bud.' Bobby Charlton said. ‘So much of his work went unnoticed by the crowd. But all his team-mates knew his value.'
Short of stature, prematurely balding and missing his two front teeth, Stiles hardly cut the figure of a traditional sporting hero, though the public adored him, no matter his appearance. Alan Ball once called him ‘the oldest-looking under-23 international in the history of the game'.
An immensely popular figure amongst his peers, Stiles was jokingly nicknamed ‘Happy' – because, on the pitch, he wasn't. ‘Nobby was the England team's sergeant major,' Geoff Hurst said: ‘If I wasn't pulling my weight he would scream unrepeatable abuse.'
Tactically, Stiles was ‘the central figure of our defensive set-up,' Alf Ramsey wrote later. ‘Instead of a sweeper behind the defence, we had a ball-winner in front of it.'
After joining the staff at Old Trafford as an inside-forward in the late 1950s, Stiles - an outstanding schoolboy international - became frustrated by his lack of progress – partly as a consequence of poor eyesight, a condition that only improved when he started wearing contact lenses on the pitch.
Unable to hold down a regular place in the first team as an inside-forward, he took action. Analysing his strengths and weaknesses, Stiles realised that he might thrive in a defensive role. ‘I was quick and competitive and I could read the play quite acutely,' he wrote later. ‘Over five to ten yards I was whippet-quick, and with those few yards of genuine pace, I could exploit the good defensive antennae [I had].'
Then, in 1964, circumstances intervened: Stiles was given a chance to stake a claim for a position alongside Bill Foulkes, United's veteran centre-half. The challenge was a tough one: to mark Jimmy Greaves, the most prolific goalscorer in English football.
After the game, which Manchester United won, Matt Busby praised Stiles' performance. It was the turning point in his career; he was now an automatic choice – a development that brought him to the attention of Alf Ramsey.
During the World Cup tournament in 1966, Ramsey famously put his job on the line, by refusing to drop Stiles despite heavy pressure from the Football Association and FIFA. Severely criticised for a bad tackle, Stiles was asked by Ramsey whether it had been deliberate. Stiles replied: ‘No.' And that was good enough for his manager. ‘If he goes, I go,' was the gist of Ramsey's ultimatum to officialdom.
It was extremely rare for Ramsey to single out an individual for praise, but he did so for Stiles during the World Cup, prompting a spontaneous round of applause from his team-mates. After the game Ramsey was giving an interview on television when Stiles walked past. ‘There,' the manager said, pointing at his number four, ‘is an Englishman.' For Ramsey, the proudest of patriots, there was no greater compliment.