Nobby Stiles: Portrait of a Man United legend

But, as we reflect on his passing at 78, perhaps the greatest trick of all was one Stiles learned as a bespectacled, bloody-kneed, gap-toothed kid from the cobbled Collyhurst streets, dreaming of emulating his idol Eddie Colman, the doomed Babe whose boots he buffed to a sheen after arriving as an apprentice in 1957. “The trick,” he wrote of those formative post-War years in his exceptional autobiography, “was always to get on with life – nobody ever said it would be easy.”

Getting on with life: a rule of thumb to which he cleaved as closely as he shadowed the great Eusebio at Wembley in May 1968, helping United reach European glory against Benfica; the standout of an Old Trafford career spanning 11 seasons and 395 games, a stint that also yielded title-winning medals in 1965 and 1967. If Best, Charlton and Law gripped the public’s imagination, all readily concurred that Stiles was no less instrumental to that success.

So endearingly clumsy off the pitch his team-mates nicknamed him Clouseau, on it he was a man transformed: the self-confessed “half-blind dwarf”, all 5ft 5 of him, a rock alongside the craggy Bill Foulkes in United’s back line. Stiles’ nose for danger was as sharp as a sniffer dog, his sense of a critical, well-timed pass from the back often bringing dividends up the other end.

The studious outlook progressed him through St Pat’s ranks to captain Manchester Schoolboys and on to a fistful of caps at the same level with England. Burnley and Bolton courted his services, but for a United-mad teenager who’d spent part of that 1948 final win with his head stuck in the sofa in woe as United trailed Blackpool, there was only ever going to be one destination.

The horror of Munich merely strengthened that bond. The lost boys were those he’d looked up to in awe, his gods, hopping across the bridge to the café to fetch their post-training bacon butties. The decimation of United’s playing pool obliged these young hopefuls to “grow up faster than any footballers before or since, and not just as players, but as young men.”

Stiles’ reserve-team debut came at the back end of 1958 against Aston Villa. He’d turned professional by the 1960/61 campaign, which brought a senior debut – and an assist – at Bolton in October’s 1-1 draw.

Still at right-half or inside forward and competing for a first-team spot with recent arrival Paddy Crerand, Stiles’ switch to central defence came through a quirk of fate a couple of seasons later. A freak injury to Maurice Setters, slipping on the marble floor of United’s hotel lobby after a European Cup Winners’ Cup thrashing at Sporting Lisbon, opened the door for a chance against Tottenham in mid-March 1964. Despite having never figured in the back four before, Stiles played a blinder alongside Foulkes, his perception and ability to read the play now greatly enhanced by the 20-20 vision afforded through contact lenses, something he’d tried at the suggestion of keeper Harry Gregg following a game at Everton. Containing the great Jimmy Greaves in that 3-2 success at White Hart Lane was “the clinching moment in my great battle to become a fully accepted member of the United elite – the key to everything good that came to me in the game.” It also alerted England supremo Alf Ramsey to his talents and a senior call-up followed for the game with Scotland in February 1965 – against clubmates Law and Crerand in February 1965, with Stiles mirroring his centre-half role alongside Jack Charlton.