Barnsley F.C.
Barnsley Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England. The team play in the third tier of the English football league system. Nicknamed "the Tykes", they were founded in 1887 by Reverend Tiverton Preedy under the name Barnsley St. Peter's; the club's colours were orignally blue, but were converted to red and white in 1904 and have played in those colours since. Their home ground since 1888 has been Oakwell. Barnsley won the FA Cup in 1911–12 and were runners-up in 1909–10; the club won two trophies at Wembley Stadium in 2016 – the Football League Trophy, beating Oxford United 3–2 in the final, the 2016 Football League play-offs, beating Millwall 3–1 in the final. Barnsley became only the second club to secure both the Football League Trophy and Football League promotion via playoff finals in the same season, after Grimsby Town F. C.. On 19 December 2017, it was announced that Patrick Cryne and family had agreed to sell a majority stake in Barnsley Football Club to a consortium involving Chien Lee of NewCity Capital, Grace Hung and Paul Conway of Pacific Media Group, Indian businessman Neerav Parekh and baseball legend Billy Beane.
The new consortium holds 80% of the shares and the Cryne family holds 20% of the shares of Barnsley Football club. Barnsley fans consider their biggest rivals to be Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United and Leeds United, although smaller rivalries with Doncaster Rovers, Rotherham United and Huddersfield Town exist. Barnsley have spent more seasons in the second tier of English football than any other club in history and have produced some notable talents over the years who have gone on to be successful at other clubs. One example is Tommy Taylor, a prolific goalscorer for Barnsley in the early 1950s and went on to win two league titles with Manchester United before losing his life in the Munich air disaster. Taylor's move to Manchester United was for a fee of £29,999 – one of the highest fees in England at the time. Taylor broke into the Barnsley team just after the sale of wing-half Danny Blanchflower to Aston Villa. Blanchflower would go on to sign for Tottenham Hotspur and be voted FWA Player of the Year twice as well as captaining the North London club to the first league and cup double of the 20th century.
Barnsley FC was established in 1887 by a clergyman, Tiverton Preedy, played in the Sheffield and District League from 1890 and in the Midland League from 1895. They joined the Football League in 1898, struggled in the Second Division for the first decade, due in part to ongoing financial difficulties. In 1910 the club reached the FA Cup final, where they lost out to Newcastle United in a replay match. However, they would reach the 1912 FA Cup Final where they would defeat West Bromwich Albion 1–0 in a replay to win the trophy for the first and only time in their history; when the league restarted after World War I, the 1919–20 season brought some significant changes to the league. The principal difference was that the First Division would be increased from 20 teams to 22; the bottom team from the previous season was Tottenham Hotspur and they were duly relegated. The first extra place in the First Division went to Chelsea, who retained their place despite finishing 2nd bottom and therefore in the relegation places.
Derby County and Preston North End were rightly promoted from the Second Division which left one place to be filled. Having finished the previous season's Second Division in 3rd place, Barnsley expected to achieve First Division status for the first time, but The Football League instead chose to call a ballot of the clubs. Henry Norris, the Arsenal chairman, had moved Woolwich Arsenal north of the River Thames to Highbury, needed First Division football to attract fans to their new home, he was to admit some underhand dealings including the bribing of some member clubs to vote for Arsenal's inclusion. They duly won the vote and Barnsley were consigned to the second tier of English football for another 8 decades; the club did however come close to reaching the top division in the early years. In 1922, they missed out on promotion by a single goal. During the years preceding and following World War II, the club found themselves sliding between the Second and Third Division. In 1949 the club signed a 23-year-old wing-half called Danny Blanchflower from Glentoran, he so impressed at Oakwell that two years he was signed by First Division side Aston Villa signing for Tottenham Hotspur and being voted FWA Player of the Year twice, as well as being the captain of the 20th century's first league and cup double winning team in 1961.
Around the time of Blanchflower's departure, a young centre-forward called Tommy Taylor broke into the Barnsley team, scoring 26 goals in 44 games for Barnsley. In April 1953, he became one of the most expensive players in English football at the time when Matt Busby signed him for Manchester United for a fee of £29,999. Taylor went on to be a prolific goalscorer at the highest level over the next five years, winning two league titles and scoring 16 times in 19 appearances for the England national football team, before losing his life in the Munich air disaster in February 1958; when the Northern and Southern sections of the Third Division were replaced by national Third and Fourth Divisions for the 1958–59 season, Barnsley were still in the Second Division, but went down to the Third Division at the end of that season. In 1965, Barnsley were relegated to the Football League Fourth Division for the first time, winning promotion three years later, they went down to the Fourth Division again in 1972, this time stayed down for seven seasons returning to the Third Div
Belfast
Belfast is a city in the United Kingdom, the capital city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast of Ireland. It is second-largest on the island of Ireland, it had a population of 333,871 as of 2015. By the early 19th century, Belfast became a major port, it played a key role in the Industrial Revolution, becoming the biggest linen-producer in the world, earning it the nickname "Linenopolis". By the time it was granted city status in 1888, it was a major centre of Irish linen production, tobacco-processing and rope-making. Shipbuilding was a key industry. Belfast as of 2019 has a major aerospace and missiles industry. Industrialisation and the inward migration it brought made Belfast Ireland's biggest city and it became the capital of Northern Ireland following the Partition of Ireland in 1922, its status as a global industrial centre ended in the decades after the Second World War of 1939–1945. Belfast suffered in the Troubles: in the 1970s and 1980s it was one of the world's most dangerous cities.
However, a survey conducted by a finance company and published in 2016 rated the city as one of the safest within the United Kingdom. Throughout the 21st century, the city has seen a sustained period of calm, free from the intense political violence of former years, has benefitted from substantial economic and commercial growth. Belfast remains a centre for industry, as well as for the arts, higher education and law, is the economic engine of Northern Ireland. Belfast is still a major port, with commercial and industrial docks, including the Harland and Wolff shipyard, dominating the Belfast Lough shoreline, it is served by two airports: George Best Belfast City Airport and Belfast International Airport 15 miles west of the city. The Globalization and World Cities Research Network listed Belfast as a Gamma global city in 2018; the name Belfast is derived from the Irish Béal Feirsde, spelt Béal Feirste. The word béal means "mouth" or "rivermouth" while feirsde/feirste is the genitive singular of fearsaid and refers to a sandbar or tidal ford across a river's mouth.
The name would thus translate as " mouth of the sandbar" or " mouth of the ford". This sandbar was formed at the confluence of two rivers at what is now Donegall Quay: the Lagan, which flows into Belfast Lough, its tributary the Farset; this area was the hub. The Irish name Béal Feirste is shared by a townland in County Mayo, whose name has been anglicised as Belfarsad. An alternative interpretation of the name is "mouth of of the sandbar", an allusion to the River Farset, which flows into the Lagan where the sandbar was located; this interpretation was favoured by John O'Donovan. It seems clear, that the river itself was named after the tidal crossing. In Ulster-Scots, the name of the city has been variously translated as Bilfawst, Bilfaust or Baelfawst, although "Belfast" is used. Although the county borough of Belfast was created when it was granted city status by Queen Victoria in 1888, the city continues to be viewed as straddling County Antrim and County Down; the site of Belfast has been occupied since the Bronze Age.
The Giant's Ring, a 5,000-year-old henge, is located near the city, the remains of Iron Age hill forts can still be seen in the surrounding hills. Belfast remained a small settlement of little importance during the Middle Ages. John de Courcy built a castle on what is now Castle Street in the city centre in the 12th century, but this was on a lesser scale and not as strategically important as Carrickfergus Castle to the north, built by de Courcy in 1177; the O'Neill clan had a presence in the area. In the 14th century, Cloinne Aodha Buidhe, descendants of Aodh Buidhe O'Neill, built Grey Castle at Castlereagh, now in the east of the city. Conn O'Neill of the Clannaboy O'Neills owned vast lands in the area and was the last inhabitant of Grey Castle, one remaining link being the Conn's Water river flowing through east Belfast. Belfast became a substantial settlement in the 17th century after being established as a town by Sir Arthur Chichester, it was settled by Protestant English and Scottish migrants at the time of the Plantation of Ulster.
In 1791, the Society of United Irishmen was founded in Belfast, after Henry Joy McCracken and other prominent Presbyterians from the city invited Theobald Wolfe Tone and Thomas Russell to a meeting, after having read Tone's "Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland". Evidence of this period of Belfast's growth can still be seen in the oldest areas of the city, known as the Entries. Belfast blossomed as a commercial and industrial centre in the 18th and 19th centuries and became Ireland's pre-eminent industrial city. Industries thrived, including linen, rope-making, heavy engineering and shipbuilding, at the end of the 19th century, Belfast overtook Dublin as the largest city in Ireland; the Harland and Wolff shipyards became one of the largest shipbuilders in the world, employing up to 35,000 workers. In 1886 the city suffered intense riots over the issue of home rule. In 1920–22, Belfast became the capital of the new entity of Northern Ireland as the island of Ireland was partitioned.
The accompanying conflict cost up to 500 lives in Belfast, the bloodiest sectarian strife in the city until the Troubles of the late 1960s onwards. Belfas
Glentoran F.C.
Glentoran Football Club is a semi-professional football club that plays in the NIFL Premiership. The club plays its home games at The Oval in East Belfast. Club colours are red and black. Linfield and Glentoran are nicknamed Belfast's Big Two, as they have traditionally dominated local football in Northern Ireland since the demise of Belfast Celtic; the two play a league match on Boxing Day each year, which attracts the largest attendance of the Irish League season. The team has won the top flight of Irish football 23 times, placing second in terms of most titles behind Linfield, however the last time they achieved this success was the 2008–2009 season, they have won the Irish Cup 22 times, the Irish League Cup 7 times and the County Antrim Shield 27 times. In 1914, Glentoran won the Vienna Cup, becoming the first team from Ireland to win a European trophy, although as this competition took place several decades before the formation of UEFA, it is not recognised as such. George Best watched Glentoran with his grandfather as a youth, but was rejected by the club for being "too small and light".
However, Best did make one appearance for Glentoran, in the club's centenary match against Manchester United. In 1964–65, Glentoran faced Panathinaikos in the European Cup and drew 2–2 at home and lost 3–2 away. In the following season's Fairs Cup, they faced Antwerp resulting a 1–0 defeat away and 3–3 draw at home; the Cup-Winners' Cup in 1966–67 saw Glentoran draw 1–1 with Rangers in front of a packed Oval before losing the away leg 4–0. Glentoran's finest hour came in a European Cup encounter with Benfica in 1967; the tie was played over the first being at the Oval. Glentoran scored a penalty early on and held out for nearly sixty minutes until football great Eusébio equalised; the match ended 1–1. The return tie was at Benfica's Estádio da Luz. Part-time Glentoran were expected to crumble under the pressure of the occasion, but again held out for a famous 0–0 draw. Benfica advanced to the next round on the away goals rule. Glentoran were the first team to lose out to this rule and the first team to stop Benfica scoring at home.
In 1967, the club ran the Detroit Cougars football franchise in the United Soccer Association. The newly formed league had planned for an inaugural season in 1968, but when the rival National Professional Soccer League announced a start date of 1967 and a television contract with CBS, the league owners decided to fast track their league by importing entire squads from Europe and South America; the two leagues would merge and form the North American Soccer League the following year. In 1973–74, Glentoran reached the quarter-finals of the Cup-Winners' Cup, they faced Borussia Mönchengladbach in the quarter-finals and were beaten 2–0 and 5–0. Four seasons they faced Juventus in a European Cup match and lost 1–0 at home and 5–0 away. In 1981–82, Glentoran reached the second round of the European Cup and faced eventual semi-finalists CSKA Sofia. After a 2–0 defeat away, Glentoran went 2–0 up in the return leg to force the game into extra time; the final result was Glentoran going out 3 -- 2 on aggregate.
The 1985 Irish Cup final between the big two saw another famous incident. Glentoran supporters brought a cockerel, the club's emblem, to the match and a pig, painted in royal blue colour, the colour of bitter rivals, Linfield; the two animals stayed on the sidelines for the duration of the match. Glentoran fans brought a cockerel to the 2006 Irish Cup final, it too stayed on the sidelines for the duration, Glentoran lost the game 2–1, thus ending their unbeaten post-war record against Linfield in Irish Cup finals; this run of 5 victories over Linfield in post-war finals which started in 1966 continued until Glentoran's defeat in the 2006 final. In 1995 Glentoran played their traditional Boxing Day match against Linfield on a snow-covered pitch. In the first half the orange ball was damaged, not having a replacement the teams were forced to play with a white ball for the remainder of the game; the incident was used as a "What Happened Next" question on the BBC's A Question of Sport. Former Linfield manager Roy Coyle took charge of the club in 1997 and under his stewardship the club entered another period of success.
In Coyle's first cup final in charge he gave up the right to lead the team out, instead he asked long serving Kitman Teddy Horner have this honour. The 2002–03 season was one of the club's most successful in recent times. Of a potential four trophies, Glentoran won three, capturing the Irish League championship, Irish League Cup and County Antrim Shield but fell at the final hurdle, losing the Irish Cup Final 1–0 to Coleraine; the only Irish League to complete the clean sweep of all trophies is Linfield who have achieved this on 3 occasions. They won 7 trophies in 1921–22 and 7 in 1961–62 and 4 trophies in 1955–56. To come so close to a clean sweep in 2003 and fail was a bitter pill to swallow. On 23 April 2005, Glentoran defeated their rivals Linfield in the second last game but one of the league season. In the 93rd minute of the match, who needed victory in order to have a chance of clinching the league title, scored a goal via their centre forward Chris Morgan. There were confrontations between the two sets of fans following the match.
Hooliganism was commonplace at matches between the clubs in the past. However this has reduced in recent years. Roy Coyle won 16 trophies with Glentoran and is the club's most successful manager in the club's history. After eight years in charge of Glentoran, Roy Coyle resigned as manager after a string of indifferent results. On 14 February 2006 the club announced that former Newry City manager Paul Millar was to take over the manager's position. Since takin
Belfast Metropolitan College
Belfast Metropolitan College is a further and higher education institution in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The college offers both vocational education and academic qualifications. With over 37,000 enrolments and an annual budget in the region of £60 million, it is Northern Ireland's largest college, it was created in 2007 by the merger of the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education and Castlereagh College. The college encompasses a number of different campuses around the city; the largest are the Millfield Campus, Castlereagh campus and Titanic Quarter building which opened in September 2011 and resulted in the closure of the Brunswick Street and the College Square East campuses. Although some support staff remained based in College Square they were moved out by winter 2013 with the building being sold. College Square East was formally known colloquially as the'Black Man Tech'; this is because of the statue of Dr Henry Cooke, a leading 19th century Presbyterian, which stands outside the building.
The statue of Cooke is not marble, but copper, like most other architecture around the city of Belfast around the same time. Due to exposure to the elements, most of these statues and domes around the city have oxidised, producing a green colour of copper oxide noticeable on the nearby City Hall. Millfield specialises in social sciences; this campus offers courses from GCSE level to undergraduate courses. Castlereagh campus specialises in Art and Design and Business; the college has campuses in Brunswick Street and Tower Street. Past students include newsreader John Irvine, footballer Danny Blanchflower, actor Colin Morgan and TV personality Eamonn Holmes, Joseph Tomelty Northern Irish character actor and playwright, television presenter and actor Aidan Browne. Belfast Metropolitan College – official website
Irish Sea
The Irish Sea separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. Anglesey, Wales, is the largest island in the Irish Sea; the second in size is the Isle of Man and the sea may but be referred to as the Manx Sea. The Irish Sea is of significant economic importance to regional trade and transport, power generation in the form of wind power and nuclear power plants. Annual traffic between Great Britain and Ireland amounts to over 12 million passengers and 17 million tonnes of traded goods; the Irish Sea is connected to the North Atlantic at both its southern ends. To the north, the connection is through the North Channel between Scotland and Northern Ireland and the Malin Sea; the southern end is linked to the Atlantic through the St George's Channel between Ireland and Pembrokeshire, the Celtic Sea. It is composed of a deeper channel about 190 miles long and 20–30 miles wide on its western side and shallower bays to the east; the western channel's depth ranges from 80 metres up to 275 m in the Beaufort's Dyke in the North Channel.
Cardigan Bay in the south, the waters to the east of the Isle of Man, are less than 50 m deep. With a total water volume of 2,430 km3 and a surface area of 47,000 km2, 80% is to the west of the Isle of Man; the largest sandbanks are the Bahama and King William Banks to the east and north of the Isle of Man and the Kish Bank, Codling Bank, Arklow Bank and Blackwater Bank near the coast of Ireland. The Irish Sea, at its greatest width, narrows to 47 miles; the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Irish Sea as follows, On the North. The Southern limit of the Inner Seas off the West Coast of Scotland, defined as a line joining the South extreme of the Mull of Galloway in Scotland and Ballyquintin Point in Northern Ireland. On the South. A line joining St. David's Head in Wales to Carnsore Point in Ireland; the Irish Sea has undergone a series of dramatic changes over the last 20,000 years as the last glacial period ended and was replaced by warmer conditions. At the height of the glaciation, the central part of the modern sea was a long freshwater lake.
As the ice retreated 10,000 years ago, the lake reconnected to the sea. Ireland has no bridge connection to Great Britain. Northern Ireland ports handle 10 million tonnes of goods trade with the rest of the United Kingdom annually; the Port of Liverpool handles 734 thousand passengers a year. Holyhead port handles most of the passenger traffic from Dublin and Dún Laoghaire ports, as well as 3.3 million tonnes of freight. Ports in the Republic handle 3,600,000 travellers crossing the sea each year, amounting to 92% of all Irish Sea travel. Ferry connections from Wales to Ireland across the Irish Sea include Fishguard Harbour and Pembroke to Rosslare, Holyhead to Dún Laoghaire and Holyhead to Dublin. From Scotland, Cairnryan connects with both Larne. There is a connection between Liverpool and Belfast via the Isle of Man or direct from Birkenhead; the world's largest car ferry, Ulysses, is operated by Irish Ferries on the Dublin Port–Holyhead route. "Irish Sea" is the name of one of the BBC's Shipping Forecast areas defined by the coordinates: 54°50′N 05°05′W 54°45′N 05°45′W 52°30′N 06°15′W 52°00′N 05°05′WTransport for Wales Rail, Iarnród Éireann, Irish Ferries, Stena Line, Northern Ireland Railways, Stena Line and Abellio ScotRail promote SailRail with through rail tickets for the train and the ferry.
The Caernarfon Bay basin contains up to 7 cubic kilometres of Permian and Triassic syn-rift sediments in an asymmetrical graben, bounded to the north and south by Lower Paleozoic massifs. Only two exploration wells have been drilled so far, there remain numerous undrilled targets in tilted fault block plays; as in the East Irish Sea Basin, the principal target reservoir is the Lower Triassic, Sherwood Sandstone, top-sealed by younger Triassic mudstones and evaporites. Wells in the Irish Sector to the west have demonstrated that pre-rift, Westphalian coal measures are excellent hydrocarbon source rocks, are at peak maturity for gas generation. Seismic profiles image these strata continuing beneath a basal Permian unconformity into at least the western part of the Caernarfon Bay Basin; the timing of gas generation presents the greatest exploration risk. Maximum burial of, primary gas migration from, the source rocks could have terminated as early as the Jurassic, whereas many of the tilted fault blocks were reactivated or created during Paleogene inversion of the basin.
However, it is possible that a secondary gas charge occurred during regional heating associated with intrusion of Paleogene dykes, such as those that crop out nearby on the coastline of north Wales. (Floodpage et al
Aston Villa F.C.
Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, England. The club competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their current home ground, Villa Park, since 1897. Aston Villa were one of the founder members of the Football League in 1888 and of the Premier League in 1992. Villa are one of only five English clubs to have won the European Cup, in 1981–82, they have won the Football League First Division seven times, the FA Cup seven times, the League Cup five times, the UEFA Super Cup once. Villa have a fierce local rivalry with Birmingham City and the Second City derby between the teams has been played since 1879; the club's traditional kit colours are claret shirts with sky blue sleeves, white shorts and sky blue socks. Their traditional club badge is of a rampant lion; the club is owned by the NSWE group, a company owned by the Egyptian billionaire Nassef Sawiris and the American billionaire Wes Edens.
Aston Villa Football Club were formed in March 1874, by members of the Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel in Handsworth, now part of Birmingham. The four founders of Aston Villa were Jack Hughes, Frederick Matthews, Walter Price and William Scattergood. Aston Villa's first match was against the local Aston Brook St Mary's Rugby team; as a condition of the match, the Villa side had to agree to play the first half under Rugby rules and the second half under Association rules. After moving to the Wellington Road ground in 1876, Villa soon established themselves as one of the best teams in the Midlands, winning their first honour, the Birmingham Senior Cup in 1880, under the captaincy of Scotsman George Ramsay; the club won their first FA Cup in 1887 with captain Archie Hunter becoming one of the game's first household names. Aston Villa were one of the dozen teams that competed in the inaugural Football League in 1888 with one of the club's directors, William McGregor being the league's founder. Aston Villa emerged as the most successful English club of the Victorian era, winning no fewer than five League titles and three FA Cups by the end of Queen Victoria's reign.
In 1897, the year Villa won The Double, they moved into the Aston Lower Grounds. Supporters coined the name "Villa Park". Aston Villa won their sixth FA Cup in 1920, soon after though the club began a slow decline that led to Villa, at the time one of the most famous and successful clubs in world football, being relegated in 1936 for the first time to the Second Division; this was the result of a dismal defensive record: they conceded 110 goals in 42 games, 7 of them coming from Arsenal's Ted Drake in an infamous 1–7 defeat at Villa Park. Like all English clubs, Villa lost seven seasons to the Second World War, that conflict brought several careers to a premature end; the team was rebuilt under the guidance of former player Alex Massie for the remainder of the 1940s. Aston Villa's first trophy for 37 years came in the 1956–57 season when another former Villa player, Eric Houghton led the club to a record seventh FA Cup Final win, defeating the'Busby Babes' of Manchester United in the final; the team struggled in the league though and were relegated two seasons due in large part to complacency.
However, under the stewardship of manager Joe Mercer Villa returned to the top-flight in 1960 as Second Division Champions. The following season Aston Villa became the first team to win the Football League Cup. Mercer's forced retirement from the club in 1964 signalled a period of deep turmoil; the most successful club in England was struggling to keep pace with changes in the modern game, with Villa being relegated for the third time, under manager Dick Taylor in 1967. The following season the fans called for the board to resign as Villa finished 16th in the Second Division. With mounting debts and Villa lying at the bottom of Division Two, the board sacked Tommy Cummings, within weeks the entire board resigned under overwhelming pressure from fans. After much speculation, control of the club was bought by London financier Pat Matthews, who brought in Doug Ellis as chairman. However, new ownership could not prevent Villa being relegated to the Third Division for the first time at the end of the 1969–70 season.
However, Villa began to recover under the management of former club captain Vic Crowe. In the 1971–72 season they returned to the Second Division as Champions with a record 70 points. In 1974, Ron Saunders was appointed manager, his brand of no-nonsense man-management proved effective, with the club winning the League Cup the following season and, at the end of season 1974–75, he had taken them back into the First Division and into Europe. Villa were back among the elite; this culminated in a seventh top-flight league title in 1980–81. To the surprise of commentators and fans, Saunders quit halfway through the 1981–82 season, after falling out with the chairman, with Villa in the quarter final of the European Cup, he was replaced by his softly-spoken assistant manager Tony Barton who guided the club to a 1–0 victory over Bayern Munich in the European Cup final in Rotterdam courtesy of a Peter Withe goal. The following season Villa were crowned European Super Cup winners; this marked a pinnacle though and Villa's fortunes declined for most of the 1980s, culminating in relegation in 1987.
This was followed by promotion the following year under Graham Taylor and a runners-up position in the First Division in the 1989–90 season. Villa were one of the founding members of the Premier League in 1992
Stanley Matthews
Sir Stanley Matthews, CBE was an English footballer. Regarded as one of the greatest players of the British game, he is the only player to have been knighted while still playing football, as well as being the first winner of both the European Footballer of the Year and the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year awards. Matthews' nicknames included "The Wizard of the Dribble" and "The Magician". Matthews kept fit enough to play at the top level. Matthews was the oldest player to play in England's top football division and the oldest player to represent the country, he was an inaugural inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002 to honour his contribution to the English game. He spent 19 years with Stoke City, playing for the Potters from 1932 to 1947, again from 1961 to 1965, he helped Stoke to the Second Division title in 1932–33 and 1962–63. Between his two spells at Stoke he spent 14 years with Blackpool, after being on the losing side in the 1948 and 1951 FA Cup finals, 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, 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 Men". Stanley Matthews was born on 1 February 1915 in a terraced house in Seymour Street, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, he was the third of four sons born to Jack Matthews, a local boxer, 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 the local club Stoke City, for an open race for boys under the age of 14, with a staggered start according to age, his father placed a bet on his son winning, he did. Matthews attended Hanley's Wellington Road School, described himself as "in many respects a model pupil".
He said the kickabout games the children played helped to improve his dribbling, prepared the children for future life by giving them "a focus, a purpose, in many respects an escape". At home he spent "countless hours" practising dribbling around kitchen chairs he placed in his backyard. Though he would become indelibly associated with Stoke City, Matthews grew up supporting that club's local rivals Port Vale, his father wanted him to follow in his footsteps and become a boxer, but Stanley decided at the age of 13 that he wanted to be a footballer. After a rigorous training session that made Matthews vomit, his mother, 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 he could continue his footballing career. Matthews played for England Schoolboys against Wales in 1929, in front of around 20,000 spectators at Dean Court, Bournemouth. 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.
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. Matthews played for Stoke's reserve team during the 1930 -- 31 season. After the game his father gave his usual realist assessment: "I've seen you play better and I've seen you play worse". Matthews played 22 reserve games in 1931–32, shunning the social scene to focus on improving his game. In one of these games, against Manchester City, he attempted to run at the left-back and take him on with a deft swerve as the defender committed himself to a challenge, rather than follow the accepted wisdom of the day, to first wait for the defender to run at the attacker – his new technique "worked a treat"; the national press were predicting a bright future for the teenager, though he could have joined any club in the country, he signed as a professional with Stoke on his 17th birthday. Paid the maximum wage of £5 a week, he was on the same wage as seasoned professionals before he kicked a ball.
Despite this his father insisted that Matthews save this money, only spend any winning bonus money he earned. He made his first team debut against Bury at Gigg Lane on 19 March 1932. After spending the 1932–33 pre-season training intensely by himself, 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. On 4 March 1933 he scored his first senior goal in a 3–1 win over local rivals Port Vale at The Old Recreation Ground, he played 29 First Division games in 1933–34, as Stoke secured their top-flight status with a 12th-place finish. He continued to progress in the 1934–35 campaign, was selected by The Football League for an Inter-League game with the Irish League at The Oval, which finished 6–1 to the English, his England debut followed, so did a further game for the Football League against the Scottish League. Stok
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