A coroner has determined that former England international and World Cup winner Nobby Stiles passed away from a neurological disorder linked to frequent heading of the ball.
Stiles, a determined and hard-tackling midfielder once described by Geoff Hurst as the “heart and soul” of the 1966 World Cup-winning side, died in 2020, yet his death was not initially referred to the coroner’s office by officials.
His family has long pushed for a thorough investigation into his passing. Stiles’s son, John, has previously stated that the sport “killed” his father.
During proceedings in Stockport on Wednesday, coroner Alison Mutch concluded that the death of the 78-year-old was linked to a brain condition resulting from repetitive heading of a football.
The inquest was told that Stiles, who spent his club career at Manchester United, headed the ball roughly 140,000 times throughout his playing days.
In his final years, Stiles suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and was ultimately forced to sell his World Cup winner’s medals to finance his medical care.
An examination of Stiles’s brain revealed that his advanced dementia stemmed from Alzheimer’s disease, in addition to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition linked to head trauma from heading the ball.
Neuropathology expert Dr. Daniel Du Plessis informed the court: “I am firmly convinced that heading the ball so frequently is what caused his CTE.”
Mutch, the senior coroner for South Manchester, asked Du Plessis: “Are you stating that the repeated heading of the ball is the direct cause of his CTE?”
“Yes,” he answered.
Norbert Stiles, born in Collyhurst, Manchester, earned 28 caps for England and made close to 400 appearances for Manchester United. He is warmly remembered for his celebratory dance after the 1966 victory over West Germany, holding the Jules Rimet trophy in one hand and his false teeth in the other.
His family has been urging football’s governing bodies to provide more support for former players dealing with injuries they assert were sustained during their careers.
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John Stiles, who leads the Football Families for Justice (FFJ) group, told the inquest that his father was “very humble” regarding his accomplishments.
“It never really changed him,” he said. “If you went into his house you would never know he was a footballer. He was very much a family man, football was left at the door. The family was always the first priority.”
He noted his father “never talked, he never bragged” about being a World Cup champion. “He was proud of it but we were always much more proud of the father he was than the footballer,” he said.
John Stiles explained that footballs in his father’s era were around 16 ounces (450g) but would become significantly heavier when soaked with water.
Numerous former players and their families, including Stiles’s, are taking legal action against the Football Association, the Football Association of Wales, and the English Football League, alleging they were “negligent and in breach of their duty of care” to the ex-professionals.
Earlier this year, an inquest into the death of Gordon McQueen, 70, a former Scotland, Manchester United, and Leeds United defender, found that heading the ball was “likely” a contributing factor to a brain injury involved in his death. McQueen was also diagnosed with CTE.
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