February 23 – The Wizard of the Dribble

HOW many 50-year-old vegetarians have we got playing in the Premier League at the moment? Even David James, Mr. Longevity himself is still twelve years away from that. It takes a special kind of player to still be playing at the highest level when you hit your half-century, especially if you’re one of the those protein-dodging veggies. But that’s exactly what Sir Stanley Matthews, who died today in 2000, was.

For those of us too young to have seen Matthews in action, we were always told that he was the greatest footballer England has ever produced. Matches such as the ‘Matthews Final’ of 1953, where Sir Stan was at the heart of a Blackpool FA Cup Final comeback from 3-1 down with thirty minutes to go have passed onto English folklore. And quite right were those who sang his praises onto the next generation, as Matthews is arguably the greatest ever attacking player the British game has seen.

He was born in 1915, the son of a Stoke boxer who went by the fantastic nickname of ‘The Fighting Barber of Hanley’, but young Stanley would never be found throwing a punch on the pitch, as throughout his 700-odd game career he was never booked. Matthews started out at his home-town club of Stoke in 1932, where he would enjoy a fifteen year spell either side of World War II before spending fourteen years by the sea in Blackpool. His body kept on ticking until 1965, when he finally bowed out of English football, thirty-three years after his debut.

As well as being the oldest player to grace the top flight and represent the Three Lions, Matthews was also the first ever player to be knighted, when the Queen invited him to her gaff in 1965.

Sir Stanley was the most high-profile player of his day, helping the game develop into a mass spectator sport following the war. The only blot on his career is the lack of honours; Matthews could boast of just a solitary FA Cup win in 1953 and a second division title in 1963. But when you’ve got the likes of Pele queuing up to tell the world that Matthews was “the man who taught us the way football should be played”, then you know he was doing something right.

Check out some grainy footage of the man they called “The Wizard of the Dribble” here and make sure you hot-foot it this way tomorrow as, like Paul Gascoigne and tabloid headlines, we’ll be back tomorrow.