Nobby Stiles' father was an undertaker, and as a young man his son arrived to sign his first Manchester United contract in a hearse. Sadly but inevitably, he will leave the same way, a victim of the dementia that has stricken so many contemporaries.
'You ended up belonging to everyone,' Stiles once said, reflecting on a life spent as a member of England's most celebrated XI. And, in many ways, more than any man in the team, he did.
Stiles was the everyman, the common denominator. He wasn't the player who scored the hat-trick in a World Cup final, he wasn't the captain, or the best technician.