Matthews could appear remote and inaccessible during his playing days, but he had a reputation for acts of kindness and consideration.
Don Ratcliffe, who was established in the Stoke City first team when Stanley Matthews returned to the club in 1961, has particularly fond memories of the legendary outside right who played in the Football League until he was 50.
One story Ratcliffe tells concerns the boots Matthews wore. ‘I kept asking Stan if I could have some of his handmade boots, but he wouldn’t give me them.
‘He’d say, “No, you’ll hurt yourself.” They were very soft, you see, just like skin. Very light.
‘Anyhow, when I signed for Middlesbrough and was leaving Stoke he gave me two pairs, two brand-new pairs. I was really chuffed with them.’
Sadly, this story of Matthews’s kindness is in sharp contrast to what happened next. ‘When I took them to Boro,’ Ratcliffe says, ‘somebody pinched them, one of the players.’
Even if Matthews could be tetchy at times, Ratcliffe says the mood soon passed. ‘I remember playing the ball to Stan and he came running up to me, “Don’t you ever pass a ball like that to me again,” he said. “Just remember I’ve got three gorillas trying to kill me. If you’re going to give me the ball just smack it straight to me, very hard.”
‘Anyhow, soon afterwards I got this ball and I was ten yards away from him and I thought, “Yeah, I’ll show you for telling me off.” So I smacked it really hard, but mis-hit it and it was going about four-foot high into the crowd. And he just put his foot up and killed it dead.
‘I couldn’t believe it. He got it on the end of his toe. “That’s better,” he said and put his arm up to say thanks.’
Howard Riley of Leicester City has a curiously touching anecdote about the man whose Football League career with Stoke and Blackpool lasted 33 years, until he retired in 1965, and who made 54 England appearances. ‘It was only towards the end of his career that I played against Matthews,’ Riley says, ‘and when he turned up to play in a testimonial at Filbert Street he said to me, “All right, Howard.”
‘He played against so many other players more than he did against me that I hadn’t really expected him to remember who I was. I considered it a compliment.’
Colin Collindridge, who played for Sheffield United from 1938 and later for Nottingham Forest and Coventry City, testifies to Matthews’s ‘gentleman’s way of doing things’. The occasion was an FA Cup tie in 1945-46 – the only season when ties were played over two legs. Collindridge scored three times in the second leg but Sheffield United still lost 4-3 on aggregate to a Matthews-inspired Stoke City.
‘As I was running off the pitch this fella came up to me,’ Collindridge says. ‘I looked round and it was Stanley Matthews, who was the best right winger for years. He shook my hand and said, “I know you’ve lost Colin but thanks for a great match.” And that was it; off he went.
‘Now I thank Matthews for this. I wasn’t in his class as a footballer but he still had the time to congratulate me.’
Matthews’s capacity for being courteous brought a rather different reaction from Dave ‘Crunch’ Whelan after a match between Blackpool, Matthews’s club from 1947-61, and visitors Blackburn in the 1950s.
Whelan, Blackburn’s young right back, says he clogged Matthews in the match itself – ‘I cleaned him out, got the ball and took a bit of him with it’ – then sought him out afterwards for his autograph. ‘I mean he was a legend, still playing in his forties’
But had Matthews been able to read Whelan’s mind he might not have been quite so charitable in obliging his impudent assailant.
Whelan recounts his conversation with Matthews in the doorway of the Blackpool dressing room:
Matthews: ‘You’re Dave Whelan, aren’t you?’
Whelan: ‘Yes, I’m Dave Whelan. Can I have your autograph, please?’
Matthews: ‘You kicked me out there and you kicked me quite deliberately didn’t you?’
Whelan: ‘Yes, sir.’
Matthews: ‘But that’s against the rules.’
Whelan: ‘I know but it’s the only way I could stop you.’
Matthews: ‘You won’t do it again, will you?’
Whelan: ‘Oh, no.’
Matthews: ‘Give me your book.’
‘And he signed it, “Best wishes, Stan Matthews”,’ Whelan says. ‘And next time I thought, “You’re going to get clogged.” He was a great player.’
This is an edited extract from When Footballers Were Skint by Jon Henderson / @hendojon published by Biteback Publishing