Court rules England World Cup winner died from brain injury linked to heading

LONDON, July 15 (AFP): England 1966 World Cup winner Nobby Stiles died with a brain condition caused by repeatedly heading a football, a coroner's court ruled Wednesday.
Stiles, a former Manchester United midfielder, died almost six years ago aged 78 with severe dementia and had headed a football around 140,000 times during his career, Stockport Coroner's Court in northwest England heard at the inquest into his death.
Expert analysis of his brain showed his severe dementia was as a result of Alzheimer's disease but also the condition, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which has been associated with head trauma from heading a ball.
Neuro-pathology expert Dr Daniel Du Plessis told the court: "I'm quite convinced his heading the football that many times has caused his CTE."
Alison Mutch, senior coroner for South Manchester, asked Dr Du Plessis: "You are saying repeated heading of the ball is the cause of his CTE?"
"Yes," Dr Du Plessis replied.
Norbert "Nobby" Stiles was capped 28 times by England and played nearly 400 times for Manchester United.
Stiles's son John, who has previously said football "killed" his father, told the hearing: "My dad was very humble, he just happened to have achieved quite a lot."
Mutch said to Stiles it was "quite strange we are having this conversation on a day like this."
But Stiles said his father "never talked, he never bragged" about being a World Cup winner.
Stiles estimated his father he headed the ball around 40 times a day, for five days a week, over a career in the game stretching to 17 years, calculating a "conservative" tally of 136,000 headers in total.
And he said footballs when his father played weighed around 16 ounces (453.5 grammes) but would get heavier when wet.