When leading figures from football gather at the London Palladium on Monday for the Ballon d’Or presentation, the occasion will look very different from the inaugural event held 70 years ago. That first award was presented in the more modest setting of Blackpool town hall, where Stanley Matthews received the trophy from Gabriel Hanot, the forward-thinking L’Équipe editor who created the annual prize for the world’s finest player.
The mayor also presented Matthews with a specially made china plate before the famously teetotal 41-year-old delivered a brief speech. “He might have celebrated with a double carrot juice,” says his son, Stanley Matthews Jr, who plans to attend this year’s event alongside his sister, Jean, and her two daughters. He recalls that there was hardly a ceremony at all—more a simple acknowledgment of the achievement. Since then, however, the presentation has developed into a major occasion, and the family is eagerly anticipating it.
Moving the event from its traditional home in Paris to England pays tribute to the first serving footballer to be knighted, an honour Matthews received in 1965 only months before retiring at 50. It is also a chance to remember an extraordinary career that started with hometown club Stoke in 1932 and ultimately made the player nicknamed the “Wizard of Dribble” a worldwide star.
“He was years ahead of everyone else,” says Matthews Jr, a former junior Wimbledon champion who went on to enjoy a successful tennis career. He points to his father’s training methods and unusually lightweight boots, which felt more like slippers and helped him move faster. Late in his career at Stoke, Matthews even arranged for the fire brigade to wet the pitch before matches so the surface would be slicker and more suitable for his style. Watering pitches is routine today, but his approach was groundbreaking at the time, as were his ideas about fitness and nutrition.
Matthews is believed to have inherited his discipline from his father, Jack, a respected boxer known as the Fighting Barber of Hanley. He also owned a hotel in Blackpool that frequently hosted well-known guests, including comedian Charlie Chester. His demanding early-morning exercise sessions on the beach became another hallmark of the lifestyle that enabled him to play for so long.
He remains the oldest recipient of the Ballon d’Or and earned the last of his 54 England appearances in 1957, when he was 42. His international total would almost certainly have been greater without the interruption of the second world war. Matthews Jr believes his father might have extended his career even further in the modern possession-focused game, joking that he could have continued until 70 if his main task had simply been exchanging passes and building play from defence.
While Harry Kane and the other leading contenders for this year’s Ballon d’Or have accumulated enormous wealth, Matthews earned no more than £20 per week until the maximum wage was removed in 1961. Joe Pierce, producer of the 2017 documentary Matthews, contrasts that income with American baseball star Joe DiMaggio, who signed a deal worth $100,000 annually while at the peak of his career.
The limited wages encouraged Matthews to pursue several commercial ideas, with mixed results. These included a football boot label, hats, books and even canned vegetable juice. Pierce explains that the drink venture failed because the juice spoiled inside the cans.
Matthews also increased his earnings by coaching abroad during the off-season, visiting an African nation almost every summer between 1953 and 1978. His enduring connection with the continent deepened shortly after his Ballon d’Or victory, when he travelled to Ghana for exhibition games marking the country’s independence. He received an ivory sword and was installed as a “soccerhene”, or soccer chief. Matthews Jr says locals called him the King of Ghana, and his sister still owns the stool used during the ceremony.
South Africa became especially important to Matthews. During the mid-1970s, he coached a Soweto side that came to be called Stan’s Men. He obtained Coca-Cola sponsorship for the team and later brought the players to Brazil for a tournament. While making his film, Pierce was struck by Matthews’ determination to continue the project despite intense pressure from the apartheid authorities to cancel the trip.
Pierce describes a tense and complicated struggle involving both the British and South African governments, as well as South African agents monitoring the camps and nearby areas. Matthews nevertheless refused to abandon his plans. His friendship with the Duke of Edinburgh, which included invitations to social visits, gave him influential connections that may have helped him overcome some of those obstacles.
Matthews Jr says his father took pride in having once been barred from the country and found it amusing that Frank Sinatra had received similar treatment. He remembers Matthews praising the South African footballers for their exceptional pace and ability. More than anything, he says, his father cared about people, recognised the players’ potential and wanted to help them develop their skills.
Matthews’ work with Stan’s Men came to an end after the 1976 Soweto Uprising. In the documentary, one former player says losing contact with him left a “hole in my heart”. Matthews’ death in 2000, at the age of 85, prompted an equally powerful response. More than 100,000 people gathered in Stoke for a funeral described at the time as the country’s largest public farewell since Winston Churchill’s.
Reflecting on the record 78 African footballers who appeared in the Premier League last season, Pierce imagines Matthews responding with the words: “I told you so.” Since Matthews received the honour, only one African player, George Weah, and three English players—Bobby Charlton, Kevin Keegan and Michael Owen—have won the Ballon d’Or. This year’s recipient will join a distinguished tradition begun by one of football’s most revered personalities.
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