EARLY LIFE

1st February 1915, during the First World War, Stanley is born to Jack and Ada Matthews of Seymour Street, Hanley, part of the English industrial heartland known as the Potteries. Stan’s father is a barber and a boxer, only defeated nine times in over 350 bouts. Stan’s mother is self-contained and resourceful and laughs a lot. The boys are all athletic and older brother George excels as a flyweight, until he loses a leg in the trenches of the Somme. This is a world before television, or radio; an old order that is about to change forever and Stanley will play a part in this change.

The young Stanley shows early sporting prowess and wins a 100-yard, under-15, handicap running race at the age of six. Father Jack wins heavily at the impromptu bookmakers. It is football though that dominates the young Stan’s life and games are played on pottery shard covered waste grounds using old tennis balls and bundles of rags. By seven Stan plays for the school team alongside boys six or seven years older. He is something of a local sensation. Recognising his son’s talent, Jack Matthews instils in Stan the enthusiasm for the training exercises that will be so important for his son’s career. At the age of eleven Stan scores eight goals in an English Schools Shield match. Just two months after his fourteenth birthday, Stan plays for the England schoolboy team. His talent is not overlooked locally. The Stoke City manager, Tom Mather, is already in talks with Jack Matthews, and when, after leaving school, Stan is asked who he would like to play for he says: ‘Stoke City’.

STOKE CITY

On his birthday 1930 Stanley joins Stoke City FC, officially as an office boy. Four times a day for two years, rain or shine, Stan walks between Seymour Street and the Stoke ground. He takes care of the kit and training gear, runs the baths to make sure the water is hot enough and also licks stamps. He is paid £1 a week and when he plays his first game as a Stoke apprentice and they win 2-1, he is rewarded with: ‘Well done, your tea’s ready’ from his Mum. If the first team wins the players chip in to give him another £1. By the time he is old enough to turn professional, clubs are willing to offer £1000 for his signature. However, on his seventeenth birthday, in his father’s barber shop, Stan signs as a professional with Stoke City. He earns £5 a week during the season, £3 off-season. Stan is very happy with this, but his Dad ensures he puts half in a savings account and gives the rest for housekeeping. Jack says he can continue to help out in the barber’s shop for pocket money.

March 19th 1932 and Stan makes his first team debut for Stoke City away at Bury. The whole team, including the backroom staff and kit, go by train. Stoke win and Stan retains his place for the next home match against Barnsley, but then doesn’t play first-team football until the next season. One year later though he scores his first senior goal for Stoke against local rivals Port Vale and that season collects a winner’s medal as Stoke are promoted to the first division. Stan is to play for Stoke until the age of 32, although his career is interrupted by the war. As a member of the RAF, billeted near Blackpool, he does play 69 Wartime League and Cup games for Stoke, and make 87 guest appearances for Blackpool. After the football league recommences, in 1946-47, Stan asks Stoke for a transfer after he is dropped for a match against Arsenal. In 1937-38 a previous transfer request had been turned down, but this time it is accepted and Stan moves to Blackpool.  

BLACKPOOL & MATTHEWS FINAL

In May 1947, at age of 32, Stan joins Blackpool for a transfer fee of £11,500 and their manager Joe Smith asks: ‘do you think you can make it for another couple of years?’ In his first season at Blackpool the Football Writer’s Association (FWA) votes Stan the very first ‘Footballer of the Year’. Stan is to play for Blackpool until 1961, making 440 appearances in their distinctive tangerine shirt, and helping the team to three FA Cup finals, including the so-called ‘Matthews Final’ win of 1953.

The 1953 FA Cup final against Bolton Wanderers is Blackpool’s third appearance at Wembley in 6 years. The young Queen Elizabeth II attends just a month before her coronation, an event that has been a huge stimulus to television sales and thus also makes this FA Cup final the first major UK TV sporting event. The match is a cracker and Stan helps inspire his team to come back from being 3-1 down. With only 22 minutes to go Stan crosses from the right wing and the ball is headed home by team-mate Stan Mortensen. Now 3-2 down with time fast running out Mortensen completes a hat trick. Seconds to go Stan crossed from the right again, this time to Bill Perry who nets the ball for a famous win. The match is dubbed the ‘Matthew’s Final’ to Stan’s annoyance and he always refers to it as the ‘Mortensen final’ after the man who got the hat trick.

At the end of the 1956-57 season Blackpool finish second in Division One and Stan is voted the inaugural Ballon d'Or ‘European Player of the Year’, at the age of 42. At the start of the 1961-62 season, with a new manager in charge at Blackpool, Stan is sidelined in favour of a younger player and happy to consider a move elsewhere. Stoke City, struggling in the second division, are keen to have the talismanic Stan back, but to Stan’s annoyance Blackpool hold out for a £3,500 transfer fee. When Stan asks for this fee to be waived for all his years of service, a Blackpool director tells Stan that Blackpool ‘made him’ and Stan leaves the board in no doubt as to who actually was responsible for his success - himself. 

THE RETURN TO STOKE CITY FC

Stan signs for Stoke City ‘live’ on television in front of millions of viewers on the BBC’s Sportsview programme, manager Tony Waddington’s idea to help Stoke get back into the public eye. Stan signs for twice the wage he was receiving at Blackpool, £50, but Tony is a canny man with flair. It is Tony who describes football as “the working man’s ballet”. On October 24th 1961 Stan returns to the Victoria Ground and the second division and sets up a goal in Stoke’s 3-0 win against Huddersfield Town. The normal home attendance is trebled by his appearance. The public eye has indeed noticed and Tony has got his Nureyev, and his money’s worth. Stan goes on to play 21 games in this season and then the next year helps Stoke City FC gain promotion back to Division One. For the second time in his career, Stan is voted the FWA ‘Footballer of the Year’. 

Stan’s 1962-63 season is curtailed by injury and recovery time now prompts him to consider retirement - after just one more season. 1964-65 is mostly spent playing for the reserves though, but compensation comes when he is knighted in the New Year’s Honours List. Sir Stan is the first active professional to ever be so honoured. His last match for the Stoke first team is against Fulham on 6th February, five days after his 50th Birthday, and it also marks the last football league game of his career. Stoke win 3-1. As Stan hangs his boots up his team-mates spontaneously burst into a chorus of “for he’s a jolly good fellow”. After all the goodbyes and fair-thee-wells are over Stan is the last one to turn out the dressing room lights. He leaves his boots on the peg as it seems the right thing to do, but he has not said goodbye to football, not by any means.

INTERNATIONAL CAREER

Stan first represents his country, age 13, in a schoolboy international against Wales at Dean Court in Bournemouth. The team wins 4-1 and Stan is disappointed not to score. Although he doesn’t play schoolboy international football againthe event is significant as it inspires Stan to even greater levels of dedication and convinces his parents that he has what it takes to be a professional. When he finally makes his first full international debut age only 19 in 1934, again against Wales, he does not miss out on getting his name on the score sheet. Their next match is against World Champions Italy. Perhaps in fear of their fascist Prime Minister, Mussolini, the Italian team produce a bloodbath of a match that becomes known as the ‘Battle of Highbury’. England win 3-2 but Stan is aghast at the ferocity of the game and he is not picked again until, following a team-mates injury, he is included in the team to play at home against Germany. Strangely the press does not pick up the match’s political implications. For Stan though it is a watershed as he encounters left back Reinhold Münzenberg, seven years his senior, and more than his equal in skill and speed. Although England win, Stan’s nightmare is evident to everyone, including the press. Stan now has to wait until April 1937 until he is capped again, part of a team that loses in Scotland. Then in 1938, after working hard on his psychological approach, and buoyed up by a hat-trick against Czechoslovakia, he again faces Münzenberg and Germany, this time in Berlin. In the changing room, the team, to their anger, are instructed to give the Nazi salute during the anthems. The management, under instructions from the government, leaves them no choice. The England team takes their revenge during the match, wining 6-3, and embarrassing senior Nazi leaders. Stan conquers his nemesis Reinhold Münzenberg, leaving him dumbfounded more than once, particularly with a solo effort that puts his name back on the score sheet.

This is England’s last summer tour before the real conflict intervenes. Stan plays a range of different ‘international’ matches during the Second World War while a member of the RAF. Caps are not awarded but when full internationals recommence he is once more playing and touring with England. Although he is included in the England squads for the 1950 and 1954 World Cups, the FA’s failure to treat the tournament seriously robs Stan of the opportunity to shine on this particular world stage. In 1957, aged 42, he becomes the oldest player to represent his country. In 1958, despite press pressure, the selectors do not include him in the World Cup squad and his time as an international is over, yet his 23-year international career remains unbeaten.  

RETIREMENT AND BEYOND

Stan’s entry into the world of football management at Stoke’s local rivals Port Vale is not a great success. As general manager, alongside player friend player-manager, Jackie Mudie, he tries to build a team featuring the sort of talented young player he had been, however the Port Vale board want instant results. Stan stands down following Port Vale’s expulsion from the league over alleged financial irregularities in the payment of living expenses to a young player. Stan uses his influence to ensure that Port Vale are re-elected but the incident leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

Coaching, however, continues to be a joy and a way of Stan giving back something to the game he still loves. Coaching all around the world has actually occupied most of his summer months for many years now. His time spent in South Africa, particularly in Soweto, is particularly exhilarating. He forms Stan’s Men, a team of ghetto schoolboys and they tour throughout the country. Never a fan of authority figures that he doesn’t respect, Stan in 1975 now takes on the apartheid regime by organising the first international tour by an all-black South African team. Almost to his own surprise he succeeds and the trip to Brazil goes ahead, prompting one of the boys to dub Stan, ‘the black man with a white face’.

Even today Stan remains a model footballer, for his skill, his dedication, his integrity and above all for his good sportsmanship. He was never booked or sent off once in all his years of playing. Stan believed in the power of football to improve the lot of the common man and provide moments of magic that transcended the common place. His example remains to inspire anybody who has ever kicked a ball against a wall and had a dream of excellence.