He progressed young towards baldness, he was myopic, he had no teeth, he sometimes played with his socks dropped, he seemed weak … He was left with the label of dirty footballer in a championship in which there were several prominent competitors for that title. When he won the World Cup, he walked around the perimeter of Wembley, hopping like a child and laughing happily with that toothless mouth.
Nobby Stiles, who has passed away at age 78, was famous when the football players’ hair salon was Bobby Charlton’s effort to cover his bald spot as he ran with long hairs growing out of the side of his skull. There were no cards. VAR would have annulled England’s decisive goal in the final against Germany. Men gathered in Spain in front of television store windows to watch games in black and white.
That 1966 World Cup in England was the first in which matches were televised live. Stiles, who was playing for Manchester United at the time, was on the verge of losing the glory as the English federation demanded that the national coach, Alf Ramsey, not re-line him after a macabre tackle from behind that injured the fine French midfielder Jacques Simon.
Ramsey refused and Stiles played the next game, famous for the long walk of Antonio Rattín, Argentine captain, to the dressing room, after being expelled by the German, Rudolf Kreitlein, for insisting that he bring a translator to understand what he was saying. That comedy prompted FIFA to introduce the yellow and red cards in the 1970 World Cup, the most beautiful of all, to facilitate communication between referees and players.
Shame
Stiles dried up the great Eusebio in the 66 semi-final against Portugal and, as if he were a character from Italo Calvino, added to the toothless warrior the title of destructive dancer for his dance after victory. He was holding the Jules Rimet glass, which had been stolen by as yet unidentified thieves and recovered in extremis by a dog, Pickles, who discovered it sniffing through newspapers in south-east London.
Nobby Stiles won the European Cup against Benfica and several English titles with United. The videos of matches from that time show that he was an extraordinary footballer. He was actually a very intelligent reader of the game, a Makelele, a Mauro Silva, a short Busquets who moved to be in the right place at the right time in different areas of the field, and put his body and boot.
The son of the Manchester working class, a faithful Catholic, unhappy with his health and football jobs, he asked those who considered him a dirty guy because of his unpunished entry into Simon to watch the rest of the game. He said that he didn’t play anymore, that he just passed the ball, frozen with shame. The grass was wet, he slipped, he explained. He did not stop to be interested in the fallen Simon because he was fleeing, at that hopeful Wembley, with England at home.
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