Sir Stanley Matthews is from that golden era of English
football where players were gentlemen who wore hobnail boots, massive shorts
and kicked around misshapen balls made of turnips and pig’s stomachs. They even asked each other before sleeping with each others's wives.
Matthews stood out during these more majestic, really muddy times, not for his ability to kick the opposition or the ball harder than anybody else, but for his unerring elegance on the ball and dazzling ability to dribble it and entertain the crowd. He was called ‘The Wizard of the Dribble’ and ‘The Magician’ for a reason.
Despite being a vegetarian teetotaller, Matthews wasn’t a
complete dullard. During an international against Italy in 1948, with England
4-0 up, he dribbled the ball to the corner flag to waste time, wiped the sweat
from his hands on his shorts, and before an opponent could make a tackle, managed to comb
his remaining hair back into place.
He is the only player to have been knighted while still playing, he is the first winner of both the European Footballer of the Year and the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year awards and he remains the oldest player ever to play in England's top football division at 50 years old.
He played his final competitive game in 1970, at the age of 55, for Hibernians in Malta.
Hats off to Sir Stanley then and the 100,000
people who lined the streets of Stoke-on-Trent to pay tribute to him back in
2000. A British footballing legend.
Tributes
"The man who taught us the way football should be played" - Pelé
"I grew up in an era when he was a god to those of us who aspired to play the game. He was a true gentleman and we shall never see his like again" - Brian Clough
"It is not just in England where his name is famous. All over the world he is regarded as a true football genius" - Berti Vogts
"For me this man probably had the greatest name of any player ever, certainly in Britain. I don't think anyone since had a name so synonymous with football in England" - Gordon Banks
"He [Stanley Matthews] told me that he used to play for just twenty pounds a week. today he would be worth all the money in the Bank of England" - Gianfranco Zola
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