England’s 1966 World Cup winner Nobby Styles died of mental illness caused by repeatedly headbutting a football, a coroner has ruled.
Styles, a former Manchester United midfielder, died nearly six years ago at the age of 78 with severe dementia and had headed the football almost 140,000 times during his career, Stoke-on-Trent Coroner’s Court heard at an inquest into his death.
An expert analysis of his brain revealed that his severe dementia was not the result of Alzheimer’s disease but rather the condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which is related to head trauma from heading a ball.
Neuropathologist Dr Daniel du Plessis told the court: “I’m pretty convinced that his football heading many times caused his CTE.”
Alison Mitch, senior coroner for South Manchester, asked Dr Du Plessis, “You’re saying the repeated heading of the ball is the cause of his CTE?”
“Yes,” replied Dr du Plessis.
Norbert ‘Nobby’ Stiles, born in Caleyhurst, Manchester, in 1942, was a tough-tackling defensive midfielder who was capped 28 times for England and played almost 400 times for Manchester United.
Stiles, who lived in Stratford, South Manchester, died in a care home on 30 October 2020, bedridden due to his severe dementia.
In January 2024, his family raised the possibility of CTE as a contributing factor in his death, and Dr Du Plessis examined brain tissue samples to reach his medical conclusions.
Styles’ family are campaigning for football authorities to help the former player deal with injuries they claim he suffered during his playing days.
Styles is believed to have headed the ball around 140,000 times during his career
Stiles’ son John has previously said that football “killed” his father.
Mr Styles told the hearing:
“My dad was very humble; he had just achieved so much.
“He never really changed it. If you went to his house, you’d never know he was a footballer.
“He was very much a family man; football was left at the door. Family was always the first priority.”
Coroner Miss Mitch told Mr Styles it was “quite strange that we’re having this conversation on a day like today” but the witness said his father “never talked; he never bragged” about being a World Cup winner.
He added: “He was proud of him but we were always more proud of the father he was than the footballer.”
Mr Styles told the court his father loved Manchester United and the Busby Babes, joining the club as an apprentice in 1957 aged 15.
Styles won the European Cup with Manchester United in 1968.
He said he watched his father during his training and playing days and estimated he headed the ball about 40 times a day, five days a week, during a career spanning 17 years in the game, calculating a “conservative” estimate of 136,000 headers in total.
And he said his dad weighed about 16 ounces when he played but got heavier when he got wet.
He told the court that, while modern balls no longer absorb water, studies have shown that even heading a modern ball is equivalent to 80 per cent of the impact of a boxer’s punch.
Mr 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 worsened, leaving him with increasing anxiety and a sense of doom.
“To be honest with you, he was scared,” Mr Styles said of his father.
John Stiles heads the Football Families for Justice (FFJ) group, which is calling on football authorities to do more for former players.
He is among dozens of former footballers and their families who have sued the Football Association, the Football Association of Wales and the English Football League for “neglect and breach of duty of care” towards former players.
Lawyers for former players and their families have previously said that football bodies knew or should have known that repeated headers during training and matches could cause brain injuries and that the risks had been known for decades.
In March this year, FA lawyers told the High Court that it was “not established by science” that heading the ball or “occasional” concussions could cause permanent brain damage.
In January, an inquest into the death of former Scotland, Manchester United and Leeds defender Gordon McQueen at the age of 70 found that head trauma from heading the ball was “probably” a cause of death.
McQueen was also diagnosed with CTE.
McQueen’s TV presenter Betty Hayley McQueen said the neurodegenerative disease had now “pretty much wiped out” England’s 1966 World Cup-winning team.
A 2019 study by the FA in conjunction with the Professional Footballers’ Association found that footballers were three and a half times more likely to die from neurological disease than age-matched members of the general population.
The FA is ending all head injuries in youth football for under-11s by 2026.
