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, both inside forwards. The former was almost continuously on the ball, while the Derby 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, 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 – 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 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 – 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." He also has remarkable skill as a goal scorer, which must be combined to his running and dribbling talent. Given two feet of a goal to aim at, Cobbold was famed for his accuracy, and it was said