Stanley Matthews he helped Blackpool to win the cup with a formidable personal performance in the "Matthews Final" of 1953. Between 1934 and 1957 he won 54 caps for England, playing in the FIFA World Cup in 1950 and 1954, and winning nine British Home Championship titles. Following an unsuccessful stint as Port Vale's general manager between 1965 and 1968, he travelled around the world, coaching enthusiastic amateurs. The most notable of his coaching experiences came in 1975 in South Africa, where in spite of the harsh apartheid laws of the time he established an all-black team in Soweto known as "Stan's
Stanley Matthews a 6–2 win over Northern Ireland, a 1–0 win over Wales, and a 6–0 triumph over Switzerland. Manager Walter Winterbottom began to look for a more defensive winger, and so used Matthews just once in 1949 – a 3–1 defeat to Scotland in the British Home Championship. Only after impressing in an FA tour of Canada was he was named as a last minute inclusion in the England squad for the 1950 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. He did not play in the win over Chile or in the infamous defeat to the United States, but played just once, in