Early Days
Stiles grew up in Collyhurst, a working class neighbourhood of north Manchester. He supported Manchester United and his talent was swiftly recognised when he played for England Schoolboys at the age of 15. He achieved a childhood ambition when, in the same year, the club he supported gave him an apprenticeship in September 1959.
He was an unlikely-looking footballer in many ways – he was very small, at a time when teenagers were being rejected by clubs purely because of their lack of height; he was also a wearer of dentures (the removal of which prior to matches gave him a gap-toothed expression which had the potential to scare). Despite claims that Stiles had his real teeth forcibly ripped out during a match, he has stated that he lost his teeth due to poor dental hygiene. He became significantly bald at a young age and sported a dramatic comb-over; and he suffered from severe shortsightedness, meaning he needed strong contact lenses when playing and wore thick spectacles off the field.
Nevertheless, Manchester United manager Matt Busby saw something in the tenacious youngster. Stiles was given his debut as a full back in October 1960 against Bolton Wanderers.
Read more about this topic: Nobby Stiles
Famous quotes containing the words early days, early and/or days:
“I taught school in the early days of my manhood and I think I know something about mothers. There is a thread of aspiration that runs strong in them. It is the fiber that has formed the most unselfish creatures who inhabit this earth. They want three things only; for their children to be fed, to be healthy, and to make the most of themselves.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The days are ever divine as to the first Aryans. They are of the least pretension and of the greatest capacity of anything that exists. They come and go like muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party; but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)