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 in July 1965, alongside good friend Jackie Mudie; Matthews was unpaid, though was given expenses. The pair had a plan of bringing through talented schoolboys and selling one or two off every so often to improve the club's bleak financial picture, whilst at the same time advancing through the leagues; in his autobiography he said that what Dario Gradi later achieved at Crewe Alexandra is what he had in mind for the Vale. Matthews concentrated his search in North East England and Central Scotland, where he discovered talented striker Mick Cullerton, though overlooked a teenage Ray Kennedy. Handed complete managerial