England’s 1966 World Cup winner Nobby Stiles died of a brain condition caused by repeatedly playing football, a coroner has ruled.
Stiles, a former Manchester United midfielder, died almost six years ago aged 78 from severe dementia and had headed a football around 140,000 times during his career, Stockport Coroner’s Court heard at the inquest into his death.
Expert analysis of his brain showed that his severe dementia was a result of Alzheimer’s disease, but also the condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which has been linked to head trauma from heading a ball.
Neuropathology expert Dr. Daniel Du Plessis told the court: “I’m quite confident that he’s managing the football that has caused his CTE many times over.”
Alison Mutch, senior coroner for South Manchester, asked Dr. Du Plessis: “You’re saying repeatedly heading the ball is the cause of his CTE?”
“Yes,” replied Dr. Du Plessis.
Norbert ‘Nobby’ Stiles, born in Collyhurst, Manchester in 1942, was a hard-hitting defensive midfielder who made 28 appearances for England and made almost 400 appearances for Manchester United.
Stiles, who lived in Stretford, south Manchester, died in a care home on 30 October 2020 after being bedridden by his severe dementia.
In January 2024, his family raised the possibility that CTE may have contributed to his death, and Dr. Du Plessis examined brain tissue samples to reach his medical conclusions.
Stiles’ family have campaigned for football authorities to do more to help former players cope with injuries they claim were caused during their playing days.
Stiles’ son John has previously said that football had “killed” his father.
Stiles told the hearing: “My dad was very humble, he happened to have achieved quite a lot.
“It never really changed him. If you walked into his house, you’d never know he was a footballer.
“He was very much a family man, football was at the door. The family was always the first priority.”
Coroner Ms Mutch told Mr Stiles it was “quite strange we’re having this conversation on a day like this”, but the witness said his father “never spoke, he never bragged” about being a World Cup winner.
He added: “He was proud of it but we were always much more proud of the father he was than the footballer.”
Stiles told the court his father loved Manchester United and the Busby Babes, and joined the club as an apprentice aged 15 in 1957.
Stiles won the European Cup with Manchester United in 1968
He said he had watched his father during his training and playing days and estimated he headed the ball around 40 times a day, five days a week, during a playing career spanning 17 years, calculating a “conservative” estimate of 136,000 total headers.
And he said footballs when his father played weighed about 16 ounces but would get heavier when wet.
He told the court that while modern balls no longer absorb water, studies have shown that even a modern ball is equivalent to around 80 per cent of the impact of a boxer’s punch.
Stiles said that when his father was in his late 50s and early 60s, his family noticed that he began to forget things and repeat himself.
In 2010, he sold his winning medals to pay for his care as his mental struggles progressed, leaving him with increasing anxiety and a sense of doom.
“To be honest with you, he was scared,” Mr Stiles said of his father.
John Stiles is head of the Football Families for Justice (FFJ) group, which is calling on the football authorities to do more for ex-players.
He is among dozens of former footballers and their families who are suing 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 former players.
Lawyers for the former players and their families have previously said that soccer organizations knew or should have known that repeatedly heading a ball during practice and during matches was likely to cause brain damage, and that the risk had been known for decades.
In March this year, the FA’s lawyers told the High Court that it “has not been established by science” that heading a ball or the “occasional” concussion can lead to permanent brain damage.
In January, an inquest into the death of ex-Scotland, Manchester United and Leeds defender Gordon McQueen at the age of 70 found that heading the ball was “likely” to have contributed to brain damage which was a factor in his death.
McQueen was also diagnosed with CTE.
McQueen’s TV presenter daughter Hayley McQueen said England’s 1966 World Cup-winning team had now been “pretty much wiped out” by the neurodegenerative disease.
The FA, along with the Professional Footballers’ Association, funded a 2019 study that found footballers were three and a half times more likely to die from neurodegenerative disease than age-matched members of the general population.
The FA will phase out all headlines in youth football up to under-11s by 2026.