February 1: Sir Stanley Matthews

Sir Stanley Matthews, the first British soccer player to be knighted, was born on this date in 1915. Some things you may not know about him.

1. His father, Jack, was a boxer (known as the "Fighting Barber of Hanley") and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. By the age of 13, Stan knew he wanted to be a footballer. Jack eventually conceded that he could ditch boxing for Football if he was picked for the England Schoolboys. He was, of course, and the rest is history. By the time Jack died in 1945, he was reconciled to his son's football career, and on his deathbed, made him promise to win an FA Cup final.
2. As a child, he'd put kitchen chairs in the garden and practice dribbling around them. It paid off - one of his nicknames as a player was "The Wizard of the Dribble".
3. The first job he did for his first club, Stoke City, was as an office boy rather than a player. He started work in that capacity on his 15th birthday and was paid £1 a week. On his first day, he met Betty Vallance, daughter of Stoke City trainer Jimmy Vallance, who would become his first wife.
4. During the second world war, Matthews joined the RAF and rose to the rank of corporal. He reckoned he was one of the most lenient and easy-going NCOs in the forces.
5. He kept the promise he made to his father while playing for Blackpool in 1953. That game became known as The Matthews Cup Final of 1953. Blackpool were losing 3-1 against Bolton Wanderers. During the last 20 minutes of the game, Matthews turned things around and the final result was 4-3 to Blackpool.
6. He was the first player to win both the European Footballer of the Year and the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year awards. He's also the only football player to be knighted while still playing, although he retired five days later at the age of 50.
7. Although he played for Stoke City, he'd grown up a supporter of a rival team, Port Vale. When he retired from playing football, he did a stint as Port Vale's manager. However, the club didn't do well during that time. They were fined £4,000 in February/March 1968 and expelled from the Football League for financial irregularities. It was Matthews who pleaded with the Football League to get them re-instated, which worked, due to his fame and reputation as a footballer. At this point, he decided management was not for him and resigned.
8. He had better success as a coach for young players. During the summers, from 1953 to 1978, he'd travel to South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania to coach poor children. In 1975 he formed an all black team called "Stan's Men" in Soweto, in spite of the apartheid laws of the time.
9. He met his second wife, Mila, in 1967. She was the translator on Port Vale's tour of Czechoslovakia. Matthews decided she was his soul mate, divorced Betty and married her. He died a year after she did.
10. There are two autobiographies of Stanley Matthews - Feet First, published in 1948 and The Way It Was, published in 2000.

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