Sir Stanley Matthews

viv_andersons_nana

viv_andersons_nana

Well-known member
He just came to mind after seeing the Ronnie O’Sullivan thread. I watched the snooker final tonight and O’Sullivan was brilliant - as was Ding to be fair - and to be going strong at 48 is pretty incredible.

But do we talk about Stanley Matthews enough? It blows my mind that he played until he was 50. His debut was in 1932 and his final appearance was in 1965. He was playing for England into his 40s. It seems absolutely insane.

Can you imagine the changes in football he saw and experienced? And the war no doubt robbed him of even more appearances, caps, accolades.

Could you ever see Isaiah Jones or Matt Crooks playing until they were 50? A sprightly Jones running down the wing against Rotherham in 2049. It’s almost unthinkable.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
He just came to mind after seeing the Ronnie O’Sullivan thread. I watched the snooker final tonight and O’Sullivan was brilliant - as was Ding to be fair - and to be going strong at 48 is pretty incredible.

But do we talk about Stanley Matthews enough? It blows my mind that he played until he was 50. His debut was in 1932 and his final appearance was in 1965. He was playing for England into his 40s. It seems absolutely insane.

Can you imagine the changes in football he saw and experienced? And the war no doubt robbed him of even more appearances, caps, accolades.

Could you ever see Isaiah Jones or Matt Crooks playing until they were 50? A sprightly Jones running down the wing against Rotherham in 2049. It’s almost unthinkable.
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Remarkable immensely skilled player and man going off the footage I've seen.
I think I once read !, Stoke fire brigade watered the wings for him prior to home games he liked the surface fast.
As you say first division football at that age and stage is something unusual, with a inspiring career to boot.
I learnt he played until he was 50 growing up, a fact my old fella used to sometimes trot out.
As I got older I set my goal to play football to that age, although 11 -a - side I was 46 years old and I was 50 still playing 5 -a -side.
How the hell did he do it? he was obviously someone who looked after himself and his ability and honed skills were still useful to the team. I would imagine he would want to be competitive, otherwise he would have called it a day earlier himself. A top player who spent a career avoiding thug defenders sliding in , but like most dum dum defenders they don't like to look done up or sold, so maybe they thought better of giving him a whack?

Great ball playing legends
I grew up listening to stories of Wilf Mannion virtually everyday from my old fella, he worshipped the ground coming to him.
As I grew older I was beginning to yawn at these stories, (sorry dad) he used to tell me this story of how Mannion would run up the wing sometimes and cleverly back pass the ball with his heel 10-15 yard inside to a team mate, and then then do a mazy run against the defender who didnt know where the ball had gone. Mannion would then stop and point to where the ball was. I found this hard to imagine never mind it being done.

However Wilf played in Harold Shepherdsons testimonial age 55 and I was there with my old fella and brother, and Wilf did the trick against Paul Madley,the then current England CH, and the crowd rose to its feet clapped and laughed. I wouldn't imagine Wilf had played for a long while but he still had the skill to do it. The old fella crowed for years over it.

I once seen some footage of Len Shackleton narrated by Barry Davies, he was incredible with a ball by the looks.
 
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He was also a huge fan of our own legend.

Stanley Matthews once said: "Wilf could turn on a sixpence and liked to play the short game. He had an instinctive football intellect. He was a beautiful player and a delight to the eye. On his day, there were few to touch him. So nice and modest."
 
Jedi boro said:
He was also a huge fan of our own legend.

Stanley Matthews once said: "Wilf could turn on a sixpence and liked to play the short game. He had an instinctive football intellect. He was a beautiful player and a delight to the eye. On his day, there were few to touch him. So nice and modest."
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I knew you'd mention this jedi! :ROFLMAO: ;) (y)
 
Back to the OP sir Stanley was viewed globally the epitome of English football he was the player everyone wanted to watch the one the kids wanted to be.

but then with us winning the World Cup certainly overshadowed that and I think Bobby Charlton largely then replaced him as our global icon top scorer World Cup winner european cup winner etc.

But there’s no doubting his greatness.
 
Jedi boro said:
He was also a huge fan of our own legend.

Stanley Matthews once said: "Wilf could turn on a sixpence and liked to play the short game. He had an instinctive football intellect. He was a beautiful player and a delight to the eye. On his day, there were few to touch him. So nice and modest."
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Don't think Wilf was quite so complimentary. Thought Matthews was "one dimensional".

This was from an interview he did with Harry Pearson if I'm remembering right, got the impression he didn't much rate anyone apart from Tom Finney. Camsell "couldn't trap a bag of cement" by all accounts. Struggling to find a link, but I'm sure I didn't make this up...
 
Jedi boro said:
Back to the OP sir Stanley was viewed globally the epitome of English football he was the player everyone wanted to watch the one the kids wanted to be.

but then with us winning the World Cup certainly overshadowed that and I think Bobby Charlton largely then replaced him as our global icon top scorer World Cup winner european cup winner etc.

But there’s no doubting his greatness.
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I've always felt that Stan Mortensen must have felt pretty aggrieved about the 1953 FA Cup final.

Also, why do we never name finals/matches after players anymore?
 
Chutney said:
Don't think Wilf was quite so complimentary. Thought Matthews was "one dimensional".

This was from an interview he did with Harry Pearson if I'm remembering right, got the impression he didn't much rate anyone apart from Tom Finney. Camsell "couldn't trap a bag of cement" by all accounts. Struggling to find a link, but I'm sure I didn't make this up...
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He slagged off Juninho quite brutally in one book I read.
 
Chutney said:
Yeah, rings a bell. One footed wasn't it?
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I'll try and dig out the quote. He definitely said something along the lines of Juninho not being fit to lace his boots, which, objectively is an absurdly arrogant thing to say about a player who is widely regarded as being at least on a par with him. Albeit he probably said this in his first spell, before TLF won the world cup and League Cup with us etc.
 
atypical_boro said:
I'll try and dig out the quote. He definitely said something along the lines of Juninho not being fit to lace his boots, which, objectively is an absurdly arrogant thing to say about a player who is widely regarded as being at least on a par with him. Albeit he probably said this in his first spell, before TLF won the world cup and League Cup with us etc.
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At the Chesterfield FA Semi replay I got my dad to admit Juninho was as good as Mannion, which was pretty remarkable given he was a South Bank lad himself who knew Mannion personally.

He denied it the next day mind...
 
atypical_boro said:
On whether Juninho was the new Mannion.....

"No, he is always getting caught too much and at the end of his run he's not doing anything at all. I never got caught at all, never got touched."

No praise like self-praise Wilf!
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The old fella said Juninho was good but only 10% as good Wilf 😀 No bias there then.

"No praise like self-praise Wilf!" the saying is the older you become the better you say you were.
 
Really good documentary on Stanley I watched over the summer, can’t remember which platform it was on. He had his own training and fitness regime that kept him going so long. England selectors kept trying to drop him in the 50s, but he was still worthy of his place!
 
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Some years ago I picked up a biography of Matthews in a second hand book shop. In the foreword the author talked about his love of football. He was from Portsmouth, a top footballing side at the time but his main memory from his childhood was being taken up to Stamford Bridge to watch a game, the reason being that the great Wilf Mannion was playing there for Middlesbrough that day.

He must have been some player. How many from here would pop to Elland Road to see a player turn out against Leeds?
 
Sir Stanley only actually played 697 league matches in England for Blackpool and Stoke.
That in 25 full seasons.

I remember asking Dad about Matthews and he said he played when he wanted to.
He only played 35 or more league matches in a season 7 times, 5 of those before WW2 when he was just 23.
After the war he played 379 league matches for Blackpool across 15 seasons. 25 matches per season
In total he played 783 matches in English football, mostly top flight.

I am just offering some perspective. He was obviously an excellent player and a biological freak to endure so long.
But a bit like James Milner, who has 868 matches in this his 24th consecutive season (all top flight football inc Europe) he has benefitted from not playing full seasons by a long way.
As a contrast Ryan Giggs played 963 top flight/European matches for Man U across 23 consecutive seasons.
19 of those seasons he played 35 or more matches.
15 of those seasons he played 40 or more matches.

Matthews a Port Vale fan growing up.
See also Phil Taylor, Robbie Williams, Lemmy.
The only notable Stoke fan appears to be Julian Clary.
I've had this discussion with one of my best mates a Stokie a few times, always raised by him with a smile.
 
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