Cousin mourns UK football's 'Lion of Vienna'

While hundreds of grieving Bolton Wanderers fans braved pouring rain yesterday at Reebok Stadium to write messages of condolence after the death of Nat Lofthouse, Tauranga woman Elizabeth Phillips was quietly remembering the English footballing legend she called her "big brother".
Lofthouse, the former Bolton Wanderers and England striker who was one of the greats of a golden postwar generation, died in his sleep at the age of 85 on Sunday (NZT) after an aneurism.
Phillips, a 78-year-old Minden resident, was Lofthouse's cousin (their mothers Lily and Jane were sisters) and said the man dubbed the "Lion of Vienna" would be shocked at all the fuss.
"Nat was a lovely, humble man who wouldn't like any of the fuss being made right now, although he lived and breathed football and was thought of extremely highly at the Bolton club," she said. "Everybody of my era in England knows Nat Lofthouse."
Lofthouse earned the "Lion" tag as a result of a pain-defying 1952 performance for England when he was knocked unconscious after scoring the winning goal in a 3-2 defeat of Austria.
He spent his career at the northern England club, making more than 500 league appearances and scoring 255 league goals between 1946 and 1960. He also found the net 30 times in domestic cup competition and scored both goals in Wanderers' 2-0 defeat of a mourning Manchester United, depleted by the Munich air disaster, in the 1958 FA Cup final at Wembley.
Lofthouse also represented England 33 times, scoring 30 goals.
Although Phillips last saw Lofthouse more than two decades ago on a trip back to the UK, his son, Jeff, visited Tauranga two years ago and phoned on Sunday with the news.
"The Bolton Evening News actually reported on December 20th that Nat had died, which was absolutely dreadful and hurt me so much, because I couldn't understand why no one in the family had phoned," she said.
Lofthouse's two best mates were England contemporaries Tom Finney and the late Stanley Matthews. "He used to say all he did was get the ball in the back of the net - Stanley and Tom were the ones who passed it to him."
Phillips was close to Lofthouse, who called her "Cocker", and his two older brothers, Tom and Dick. Growing up in Bolton, the lads kept an eye out for their young cousin at school.
A photo of Lofthouse being lifted aloft after Wanderers' 2-0 defeat of United held pride of place in his home. "It hung on the wall in the dining room and Nat always joked he was glad the Duke of Edinburgh gave him the Cup, not the Duke of Kent, because he didn't much like him."
Phillips won't go back to the UK for Lofthouse's funeral next week, although she hopes to revisit old memories of her famous cousin by watching a 1995 video of Michael Aspel's This is your Life.