Stanley Matthews - Family and Personal Life

Family and Personal Life

Matthews was born in a terraced house in Seymour Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. He was the third of four sons born to local boxer Jack Matthews, who was also known as the "Fighting Barber of Hanley". In the summer of 1921, Jack Matthews took six-year-old Stanley to the Victoria Ground, home of local club Stoke City, for an open race for boys under the age of fourteen, with a staggered start according to age. His father had placed a bet on his son winning, which he did. Matthews attended Hanley's Wellington Road School, and he described himself as "in many respects a model pupil". He also said the kickabout games the children played helped to improve his dribbling, and also prepared the children for future life by giving them "a focus, a purpose, discipline, and in many respects an escape". At home he also spent 'countless hours' practising dribbling around kitchen chairs he placed in his backyard.

At the age of thirteen he decided he wanted to be a footballer, despite the fact that his father wanted him to follow in his footsteps and become a boxer. After a rigorous training session that made Matthews vomit, his mother, Elizabeth, stood firm and made Jack realise that his son, who had one more year at school, should follow his passion of football. His father conceded that should he be picked for England Schoolboys then he could continue his footballing career; around this time his school football master picked Matthews as an outside-right, rather than as his then-preferred position of centre-half. Matthews received his England Schoolboy call-up against Wales in 1929 in front of a crowd of around 20,000 at Dean Court, Bournemouth. When his father died in 1945 he made his son promise him two things on his deathbed, firstly to look after Elizabeth, and secondly to win an FA Cup Final.

In the summer of 1934, Matthews married Betty Vallance, daughter of Stoke City trainer Jimmy Vallance, whom he first met on his fifteenth birthday in 1930 on his first day as office boy at the Victoria Ground. The couple had two children together: Jean (born 1 January 1939) and Stanley Jr. (born 20 November 1945), who went on to become a tennis player under the tutelage of John Barrett. He became Wimbledon Boys' Champion in 1962, making him the last English player to do so, as of 2011. He never translated his success into the senior game though, and instead moved to the United States to run the Western Connecticut Tennis Centre. Jean married Robert Gough, whom she had met at their tennis club, in January 1963; she later said of her father that "He was a very good father and family man. He kept my brother and me out of the limelight, he was very protective." In 1966, Matthews became a grandfather after Jean gave birth to a son, Matthew Gough. She would have two other children — daughters Samantha and Amanda. Gough made Matthews a great-grandfather in 1999 when he and his wife had a son, Cameron. Matthews had six other great-grandchildren.

In 1967, while on a tour of Czechoslovakia with Port Vale, Matthews met 40-year-old Mila, who was the group's interpreter for the trip. Matthews was still married to Betty, but as he was convinced he had found the true love of his life in Mila, he and Betty divorced. He and Mila spent the ensuing years living at various times in Malta (specifically Marsaxlokk), South Africa and Canada. They also travelled extensively as Matthews's coaching jobs and guest appearances dictated. After Mila died in 1999 at the age of 71, according to Les Scott (who helped Matthews write his autobiography), Matthews "was never the same person".

"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 on to their harsh working lives." —Les Scott describing Matthews' personality in the epilogue to his autobiography.