Nobby Stiles grave (18th May 1942 to 30th October 2020)

I’m not interested in football but even I know who Nobby Stiles was. For most of his career he played for Manchester United (and played for England 28 times.) This small, speedy legendary dynamo was known for playing with his false teeth, for stealing the ball off the opposition and passing it up to goal scorers. He lies at the back of in Stretford Cemetery and here I am near his bones.

He was born in the middle of an air raid a few miles from this grave - in Collyhurst in a rough district of Manchester. He was pushed out into the world in the cellar under the family home. Like most local lads he supported Manchester United but unlike others he was apprenticed to them from the age of 15. He didn’t look like a winner - short, small, thin, short-sighted (wore contact lenses when playing), nearly bald and he had a few teeth missing. Manager Matt Busby’s instincts where right when he took a chance on his determined youngster. Nobby - real name Norbert - seemed to be able to magically steal the ball off other players and pass it to an unmarked team member. Also his timing was priceless, possessing the ball until one of his teammates found himself in a vital space from which to make an attack.

I won’t go into his long career with the Reds but he played for them 395 times. Later on he was a manager - but a poor one. He was sacked from managing West Bromwich Albion due to a series of losses. He returned to Man Utd as a team coach from 1989 to 1993, developing some teenage lads who would become star players like David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville and Paul Scholes.

Away from the field he married Kay aged 21 and they raised three children in the home in Manchester. He was a religious man and even tried to attend mass on the day of the World Cup final. In the late sixties and early seventies footballers weren’t earning a million pounds a month and he sold a few medals to raise money. Over the years various medals brought in a reputed £400,000 for his family.

In later life he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and then dementia. He died aged 78 in a care home from a progressive neuro-degenerative disease linked to repeated head trauma (he’d been heading hard footballs for decades.) His brain was donated to a study body which investigated the link between dementia and heading footballs.

His graves lies at the back of the cemetery and the headstones shows his real name Norbert (how many Norbert's do you know?) The plants and flowers looked a little sorry for themselves. I wondered if he was buried wearing his false teeth. A lack of Man Utd memorabilia suggested not many people knew he was buried here. I did a salute and left.