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Winning boots go on display
For over forty five years a pair of football boots worn in one of the F A cups most thrilling matches have been displayed in a pub in a small Staffordshire village. However, the legendary pair of boots worn by Stanley Matthews in the 1953 F A Cup Final have just been reunited with the rest of his kit at the Museum and visitors to the museum now have the chance to see the whole kit including socks, shirt and shorts for the first time.
In 1962 Stanley Matthews was invited to open Cheadle Cricket Clubs’ new pavilion and he took the boots along to be auctioned on the evening. The vice president of Oakamoor FC, a small local league club purchased the boots for £11and donated them to the football club. The boots were put in a glass case and were displayed in the villages’ pubs. The football club continued to play in local leagues for many years but sadly had to withdraw from competition for 2008-09 season due to a lack of players.
Wiebke Cullen, Collections Officer at the National Football Museum commented “As the club are unable to play at the moment, they approached us and asked whether we would like to display the boots on their behalf. Of course we said yes as the 1953 final is one of the most famous of all the cup finals. It’s also extremely rare for us to be able display a complete kit. She continues: “The boots are particularly interesting because they are very different from other English football boots of the 1950’s. Compared to other boots of the time Matthews’ boots are very thin and almost slipper like - in fact much more like modern boots. This style of boot was first worn by players on the continent and in warmer climates and Matthews probably saw them at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil and then had them made for himself. These lighter boots made players a lot quicker and they could manoeuvre the ball a lot better. Apparently they only lasted for a few games each time and of course players became more injury prone because they did not protect the ankle. Other players gradually started adopting this style of boot at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s. It appears that Matthews was definitely a player ahead of his time”.
The final, which became known as ‘The Matthews Final’, was Matthew’s third and possibly last chance to earn a winners’ medal. Blackpool had failed in two previous attempts to lift the cup and early in the second half were 3 -1 down against Bolton Wanderers. With three minutes to go the score line was 3 – 2 to Bolton. Matthews set up a goal for Stan Mortensen to equalise and then another for Bill Perry to score the winning goal in injury time. Blackpool had won 4 – 3 and a deserved place in the record books.