Reverend Ruddock conducted Sir Stan's funeral |29 July 2004

While being in our football-mad country, Reverend Ruddock, who said that "it was nice to see a lot of people celebrate their team's (St Louis') win on Sunday night", did not fail to talk about how he conducted the funeral of one of the world's greatest footballers – Englishman Sir Stanley Mathews.

Being the rector of the Stoke-on-Trent parish where the Stoke City football club grew up, Reverend Ruddock said that he got to know Sir Stanley Mathews well in 1999 on the demise of the former footballer's wife.

"I was asked to conduct his wife's funeral and this is when I got to know Sir Stanley and his family. In 2000, I was away in Sweden visiting my son and I saw a news flash that Sir Stanley Mathews had died. I rang the club to say that I was coming back to England to lead the funeral service.

"I can remember it very clearly. It was a huge funeral televised round the world and some 1,000 people, including former players like Sir Bobby Charlton and Gordon Banks, squeezed into St Peter's Church to attend the ceremony. When we came out of the church, there was a sea of some 100,000 people lining the streets with red and white shirts and scarves. It was so silent that you could hear a pin drop. The cortege of nine vehicles covered 14 miles and visited among other places the Britannia Stadium and the school Sir Stanley Mathews went to. His ashes have been buried on the centre spot of the Britannia Stadium," reverend Ruddock told Sports Nation.

Born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1915, Sir Stanley Mathews played his early football with Stoke City, now in the First Division. He then joined Blackpool before returning to Stoke City during the final years of his career.

Sir  Stan, as he was amicably called by his peers, played until he was 50 and won an FA Cup winner's medal at the age of 40.

During Sir Stan's funeral service, former Stoke City chairman Peter Coates described him as "a unique football and sporting legend. He put Stoke City Football Club on the map and kept us there for three generations more. No club had a greater ambassador.

Attending a function with him was like going out with royalty, we got the red carpet treatment. He was friendly, modest, self-effacing and never criticised players. He was highly intelligent and was a shrewd judge."

His former teammate Jimmy Armfield had this to say:
"Boxing was taken forward by Joe Lewis, tennis by Fred Perry and football by Stan. He was a true great with humility. He was a man who could reach for the stars and keep his feet on the ground. He was a role model for everyone. I never once saw him out of breath at a football match. He was often kicked and fouled but he never retaliated. Despite his global fame, he was very much a man of the people."

G. G.