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 the other £7,000 he was owed to be written off. Player Roy Sproson later said that "he [Matthews] trusted people who should never have been trusted and people took advantage of him. I am convinced a lot of people sponged off him and, all the while, the club were sliding." The experience "left a sour taste" in his mouth, and was enough to convince him never to try his hand as management in English football again. Matthews gave up his summers every year between 1953 and 1978 to coach poor children in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania. In