It is, to say the least, rare indeed that you'll read any praise on these pages for the PLC that is Manchester Utd but credit where it's due - they've done a good thing this week. Nobby Stiles, a man who managed to combine the twin achievements of winning a World Cup Final and proving that men should not dance, is such an unassuming chap that, according to his son, you'd never know what he achieved during his career on entering his house. No medals, shirts, caps, trophies on display. His medals were, apparently, in the bank and it was a matter of time before they were sold, and ill health has brought about that sale. Well Utd have bought them, and paid handsomely for the privilege, benefitting Mr Stiles' family in the process.
Stiles won his trophies while a Utd player, a European Cup for example, so the fact that they'll probably end up in the museum at Old Trafford means they're going to the right place if he cannot himself keep hold of them. I've been to the museum at Old Trafford and it's a place redolent with their history, with the Munich disaster section done movingly and tastefully, so it's a suitable home for his mementoes.
I can't of course, leave it without a bit of a dig at them, so here it is. As heartening as it is that there's clearly somebody in authority at Man U who's still got a connection with their past, it also serves only to place how far away they've come from that sense of history under the Glazers into sharp contrast. The recent 'Rooney-gate', to use a term the press might, is the best possible example of exactly that. Perhaps he should be led around the museum and shown Nobby's medals as a reminder of exactly what it is he's playing football for.
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