"Nuts" was educated at Charterhouse School, one of the great nurseries of the association game, and Jesus College, Cambridge.

Cobbold starred on his international debut in England's 7–0 demolition of Ireland in February 1883, scoring twice in three minutes, and was frequently described as the trickiest and most elegant forward in the world at this time.

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.

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."

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."

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

Cobbold suffered considerably from ill health in the years leading to his death – problems his obituarist attributed to his capacity for sheer hard work.

Clive Hodges: Cobbold & Kin: Life Stories from an East Anglian Family (Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2014) ISBN 9781843839545