William Nevill Cobbold familiarly known as "Nuts" Cobbold, was one of the leading footballers of the Victorian era

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 and on several occasions a member of the England national football team

England national football team

The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...

. As late as 1922, at the time of his death, he could be described as "the most famous association football forward of all time", and certainly – in the words of his Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

obituary – "the most individually brilliant dribbler, the player who could most often put in those thrusts that no skill could parry".

Early life and education

Born in Long Melford

Long Melford

Long Melford is a large village and civil parish in the county of Suffolk, England. It is on Suffolk's border with Essex, which is marked by the River Stour, approximately from Colchester and from Bury St. Edmunds...

, England, the son of a vicar

Vicar

In the broadest sense, a vicar is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior . In this sense, the title is comparable to lieutenant...

, "Nuts" was educated at Charterhouse School

Charterhouse School

Charterhouse School, originally The Hospital of King James and Thomas Sutton in Charterhouse, or more simply Charterhouse or House, is an English collegiate independent boarding school situated at Godalming in Surrey.Founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian...

, one of the great nurseries of the association game, and Jesus College, Cambridge

Jesus College, Cambridge

Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...

. He represented Cambridge University, Old Carthusians

Old Carthusians F.C.

Old Carthusians Football Club is an association football club whose players are former pupils of Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey, England...

, and the Corinthians. While at university, Cobbold played in four consecutive varsity matches against Oxford University

Oxford University A.F.C.

Oxford University Association Football Club is an English football club representing the University of Oxford.-History:Formed in 1872, the club was a giant of the 1870s, winning the FA Cup 2-0 against Royal Engineers in 1874 and finishing the competition as runners up in 1873, 1877 and 1880, the...

, winning each of them. His nickname, given to him during his time at school, was awarded – thought C.B. Fry – "possibly because he was the very best Kentish cob quality, all kernel and extremely hard to crack."

Playing style and reputation

Cobbold starred on his international debut in England's 7-0 demolition of Ireland

Northern Ireland national football team

The Northern Ireland national football team represents Northern Ireland in international association football. Before 1921 all of Ireland was represented by a single side, the Ireland national football team, organised by the Irish Football Association...

 in February 1883

1882-83 in English football

The 1882–1883 season was the 12th season of competitive football in England.-National team:* England score given firstKey* H = Home match* F = Friendly-Honours:...

, scoring twice in three minutes, and was frequently described as the trickiest and most elegant forward in the world at this time. "If one were to ask, Who were the three greatest forwards of all time?" wrote William Pickford and Alfred Gibson in 1906, "no matter what other two were named, W.N. Cobbold would perhaps come first to the lips."

Playing generally at inside left, "Nuts" was considered to have the ideal build for a striker of his period. "The best type of forward player," wrote Montague Shearman in 1887, "is the fast, sturdy man of medium height, like W.N. Cobbold the Cantab

Cantab

Cantab may refer to:*Cantabrigian, a member of the University of Cambridge or a resident of Cambridge*"Cantab", a common shortened form of Cantabrian, a term used for people from Canterbury, New Zealand...

." It was true, Pickford and Gibson went on, that Cobbold was pre-eminently an old-style dribbling forward, who had learned his football in the years before the advent of the "combination" (passing) game at the end of the 1870s: "In those days 'dribbling' was the great game, and one only passed the ball when one was completely hemmed in, and not always even then." But "Nuts" was far more than a mere dribbler, the authors stressed:

"He was essentially a scoring forward, and one, too, that made most of his own chances. One could not, for instance, conceive a greater contrast in style than Cobbold and Bloomer

Steve Bloomer

Steve Bloomer was an English footballer and manager who played for Derby County, Middlesbrough and England during the 1890s and 1900s. Bloomer remains a legend at Derby County and the club anthem, Steve Bloomer's Watchin', is played before every home game...

, both inside forwards. The former was almost continuously on the ball, while the Derby

Derby County F.C.

Derby County Football Club is an English football based in Derby. the club play in the Football League Championship and is notable as being one of the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888 and is, therefore, one of only ten clubs to have competed in every season of the English...

 man seems to be doing nothing, and doing it well, for the greater part of the game. When Cobbold got possession of the ball he seemed to keep it glued to his toe, darting hither and thither as he pursued a tortuous course towards goal. One man was practically powerless to stop him. Two men might stay his career by dividing their attentions between the man and the ball, but they were not always successful even then. Very frequently Cobbold would shoulder his way through a whole crowd of the opposition and emerge triumphant with the ball at his toe. He was built for hard, strenuous play."

G.O. Smith

G.O. Smith

Gilbert Oswald Smith , familiarly known as G. O. Smith or simply as G...

, the great centre forward who followed Cobbold to Charterhouse and into the England team, concurred with Pickford and Gibson, recalling "Nuts" in April 1943 with the comment: "I put him first among all the forwards I have known." Smith's verdict - coming from a noted student of the game and a man who had played with and against strikers of the calibre of Steve Bloomer and Billy Meredith

Billy Meredith

William Henry "Billy" Meredith was a Welsh footballer. He was considered one of the early superstars of football due to his performances, notably for Manchester City and Manchester United. He won each domestic trophy in the English football league and also gained 48 caps for Wales, for whom he...

 - may be considered to restore the now almost entirely forgotten Cobbold firmly to the foremost ranks of footballers of all periods.

Cobbold's other great attribute was his speed. In his prime he was a considerable sprinter, his obituary in The Times recalling: "Who that ever saw him speeding away down Parker's Piece

Parker's Piece

Parker's Piece is a flat and very roughly square green common located near the centre of Cambridge, England. The two main walking and cycling paths across it run diagonally, and the single lamp-post at the junction is commonly known as Reality Checkpoint...

 will ever forget it? He was extraordinarily hard to stop and extremely fast." Although in essence a one-paced player, lacking the ability - so conspicuously displayed by Stanley Matthews

Stanley Matthews

Sir Stanley Matthews, CBE was an English footballer. Often regarded as one of the greatest players of the English game, he is the only player to have been knighted while still playing, as well as being the first winner of both the European Footballer of the Year and the Football Writers'...

 - to stop, start and accelerate, Cobbold nonetheless possessed the exceptional ball control required to make him a most daunting opponent. "No man that ever played," wrote Pickford and Gibson, "could control the ball so effectively as Cobbold could when travelling at full speed... [He was] inimitable, the finest and fastest dribbler the Association game has known."

To his abilities as a runner and a dribbler, moreover, must be added great prowess as a goalscorer. Cobbold was renowned for his marksmanship, and it was commented that, given two feet of goal to aim at, "Nuts" would invariably hit the target. The striker had, most contemporaries agreed, one of the fiercest shots yet seen. "He could shoot in any position," was the verdict of Pickford and Gibson, "and he sent the ball in like a charge from a hundred-ton gun."

Cobbold anticipated the professional game in one respect (noted Edward Grayson, the historian of the early amateurs), "for in order to avoid getting hurt, he turned out swathed in rubber bandages and ankle guards." He belonged, nonetheless, resolutely to the earliest period of Association Football, disdaining - in common with many footballers of his generation - the aerial game, then regarded as a novel and distasteful innovation, and "eliminating all heading from his play." "Nuts" also declined to modify his dribbling style with the advent of new tactics for "passing forward" in the early 1880s - partly, speculated Pickford and Gibson, "because in his day they had not been sufficiently developed and partly because he himself was a man of infinite resource." Those who had seen the player in his prime sometimes debated how "Nuts" would have fared against the better organised defences of the 1890s. "The chances," Gibson and Pickford concluded in their assessment, "are that against three of our strongest half-backs he would have had to considerably modify his methods."

Cobbold accumulated a total of nine England caps, a good number at a time when only three international matches were played each year, scoring six England goals in total. His final international appearance came in a narrow March 1887 defeat to Scotland

Scotland national football team

The Scotland national football team represents Scotland in international football and is controlled by the Scottish Football Association. Scotland are the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside England, whom they played in the world's first international football match in 1872...

.

Other sports and later life

Although regarded by his friend G.O. Smith as scarcely in the first rank of cricketers, Cobbold played once for Kent

Kent County Cricket Club

Kent County Cricket Club is one of the 18 first class county county cricket clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the county of Kent...

, scoring four runs, and, after his retirement from football, persisted with cricket and took up golf

Golf

Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

. Playing against lesser opposition "Nuts" could be a formidable batsman; the first wicket partnership of 440 runs he notched with WR Gray for West Wratting

West Wratting

West Wratting is a village and civil parish 10 miles southeast of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire. At above sea level, it can claim to be the highest village in Cambridgeshire, although the Gog Magog Hills are a little higher....

, a small village in Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...

, against Fitzwilliam Hostel in 1891 remains, more than a century later, among the ten highest ever recorded in minor cricket.

In later life he was a schoolteacher, working principally as a "crammer" who specialised in preparing boys for entrance to the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

. Cobbold suffered considerably from ill health in the years leading to his death - problems his obituarist attributed to his capacity for sheer hard work. He died at West Wratting.

External links

• Player Profile at www.englandfc.com "Nuts" Cobbold's England player profile