A coroner has formally ruled that repeatedly heading a football contributed to the death of Nobby Stiles, the Manchester United and England midfielder who won the 1966 World Cup. Alison Mutch, senior coroner for South Manchester, concluded at an inquest in Stockport that the 78-year-old’s death in 2020 was contributed to by a brain condition directly caused by his heading of the ball during his professional career.
The court heard that Stiles, who earned 28 caps for England and made nearly 400 appearances for Manchester United, headed the ball approximately 140,000 times throughout his playing days. Dr Daniel Du Plessis, a neuropathology expert, told the inquest he was “quite convinced” that this repeated action caused Stiles to develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition associated with head trauma.
Medical Evidence
Post-mortem analysis revealed that Stiles suffered from severe dementia resulting from both Alzheimer’s disease and CTE. The coroner specifically asked Dr Du Plessis whether repeated heading was the cause of the CTE, which the neuropathologist confirmed. Footballs during Stiles’s era weighed around 16 ounces (450g) but became significantly heavier when wet, increasing the impact force on players’ heads.
Stiles spent his final years battling Alzheimer’s and required full-time care, eventually selling his World Cup winner’s medals to fund his treatment.
Family Campaign
Stiles’s family have long maintained that football was responsible for his decline. His son John, who heads the Football Families for Justice (FFJ) campaign group, has previously stated that the sport “killed” his father. At the inquest, John described Stiles as a “very humble” family man who rarely spoke of his World Cup success despite his famous victory jig at Wembley in 1966, where he danced with the Jules Rimet trophy in one hand and his false teeth in the other.
Broader Pattern
The verdict adds to mounting pressure on football authorities regarding player safety. Dozens of former professionals and their families, including the Stiles family, are currently suing the Football Association, the Football Association of Wales and the English Football League. They allege the governing bodies were negligent and failed in their duty of care to protect players from the long-term effects of heading heavy leather footballs.
Stiles is not the only high-profile case. In January, an inquest into the death of Gordon McQueen, the former Scotland, Manchester United and Leeds United defender who died aged 70, found that heading the ball was “likely” to have contributed to the brain injury that caused his death. McQueen was also diagnosed with CTE.