[14] Wolverhampton Wanderers, Birmingham City, Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion were all rumoured to be interested in Matthews in the wake of his appearance for England Schoolboys.

[15] The Stoke City manager Tom Mather persuaded Matthews' father to allow Stanley to join his club's staff as an office boy on his 15th birthday for pay of £1-a-week.

[20] After spending the 1932–33 pre-season training intensely by himself (as opposed to playing golf with his teammates), Mather selected Matthews in 15 games, enough to earn him in a winners medal after Stoke were crowned Second Division champions, one point ahead of Tottenham Hotspur.

[26] At the end of the season, he was paid a loyalty bonus of £650, though the Stoke board initially insisted he was only due £500 as he had spent his first two years at the club as an amateur – this attitude left a sour taste in Matthews' mouth.

[28] His request became public knowledge, and, disturbed by the attention and harassment he was receiving from Stoke supporters urging him to stay, Matthews decided to take a few days off from the club to relax in Blackpool.

[29] Finding no peace there either, Stoke chairman Albert Booth told Matthews he would not be allowed to leave the club, and 3,000 City supporters organised a meeting to make their feelings known – they too demanded that he stay.

[31] Despite playing regularly for the national side, Matthews put in 38 games for Stoke in 1938–39, helping them to a seventh-place finish – there would not be another full season of Football League action until 1946.

[4] One of the last games of the period was an FA Cup Sixth Round second-leg tie clash between Stoke and Bolton Wanderers; the match ended in tragedy in what would be known as the Burnden Park disaster – 33 people died and 500 were injured.

[56] They also reached the 1951 FA Cup final, where they were favourites to beat opponents Newcastle; However, Matthews ended up with a second runners-up medal thanks to a brace from Jackie Milburn.

[66] At the end of the campaign, Matthews was named the winner of the inaugural European Footballer of the Year award, having narrowly defeated Alfredo Di Stéfano 47 to 44 in the poll.

[71] With former teammate and close friend Jackie Mudie at Stoke City, and with Tony Waddington keen to welcome Matthews back to the Victoria Ground, his return to his home-town club was sealed.

[73] Waddington delayed his return debut until 24 October 1961, when Stoke played Huddersfield Town at the Victoria Ground, the attendance was 35,974 – more than treble the previous home game – and Matthews set up one of City's goals in a 3–0 win.

[77] Matthews scored his only goal of the season in the final home game of the campaign, as Luton Town were beaten 2–0, the result ensured Stoke gained promotion to the top flight.

Discovering that niggling injuries, which would have cost him one day out of action, now required more than two weeks' worth of rest to recover from, Matthews decided to retire after one more season, taking his playing career into his 50th year.

[82] Stoke City arranged a testimonial match in honour of Matthews; it was much needed as he had spent most of his career constricted to the tight maximum wage that had been enforced upon the English game and only abolished a few years before his retirement.

[90] His third cap came in a 3–0 over Germany at White Hart Lane on 4 December 1935, after Ralph Birkett was unable to play due to injury; Matthews was outplayed by his opposite number Reinhold Münzenberg in both attack and defence.

[97] He then travelled to Berlin for another encounter with Münzenberg, where pre-match he witnessed first hand the foreboding devotion the people showed the Führer when his motorcade drove past a café the England team were dining in.

[104] On 15 April 1939, he returned to a muddy Hampden Park with England to claim a 2–1 victory in front of 142,000 rain-soaked supporters; he set up Tommy Lawton for the winner with seconds to spare.

[106] Again the World Champions, the Italians managed to salvage a 2–2 draw at the San Siro after scoring with a clear handball; this time Matthews left the field with a chipped hip bone for his efforts.

[119] After playing only in two further games, a 4–4 draw with a Europe XI and a 3–1 win over Northern Ireland, he found himself back on the international scene following his heroics in the 1953 FA Cup final.

[citation needed] He was one of many signatories in a letter to The Times on 17 July 1958 opposing "the policy of apartheid" in international sport and defending "the principle of racial equality which is embodied in the Declaration of the Olympic Games".

[137] An outside right, before 1937–38 he had scored 43 goals in four seasons, and full-backs began to mark him more tightly; because of this, he decided to drop deeper to collect the ball and aim to play pinpoint crosses as opposed to going for glory himself.

"[145] Matthews regularly condemned the "blazer brigade" at the FA in his autobiography, slating them as "conservative" and stressing that many of them were Old Etonians; in his view they treated players and supporters poorly, demonstrated arrogance by ignoring competitions they did not control (the World Cup and European domestic competitions), and viewed innovations with excessive suspicion (for example the FA sanctioned only the use of floodlights in 1952 despite artificial lighting having been experimented with as far back as 1878, and for years insisted on using outdated kit such as heavy "reinforced" boots).

[147] He was never booked or sent off throughout his entire career,[148] and teammate Jimmy Armfield noted that Matthews would never retaliate to the many extremely physical challenges opponents would often make to try and take him out of the game.

[151] 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.

[152] Matthews concentrated his search in North East England and Central Scotland, where he discovered talented striker Mick Cullerton, though overlooked a teenage Ray Kennedy.

[158] The South African authorities did not want to cause an international incident, so did not prevent Stan's Men from getting on the plane to Rio de Janeiro, where they would meet legendary player Zico.

[176] Sierra Leonean football club Mighty Blackpool F.C., based in the capital city of Freetown, changed their name from Socro United in 1954 because of their admiration for Matthews.

[179] On 19 August 1935[180] in Eaglesham, Scotland, Matthews married Betty Vallance, daughter of Stoke City trainer Jimmy, whom he first met on his 15th birthday in 1930 on his first day as office boy at the Victoria Ground.

[148] "Self-willed, strong-minded, humorous, generous of spirit and, for all his fame, as down to earth as the folk who once adorned the terraces in the hope of seeing him sparkle gold dust onto their harsh working lives.