Born the third of four sons to amateur boxer and hairdresser Jack Matthews billed as ‘The Fighting Barber of Hanley’, Stanley Matthews became the first footballer to be knighted at a time when he was still playing football.

He was in his forties when he was voted European Footballer of the Year and when he retired from first class football aged 50 he later declared that he had ‘retired too young’.

Loyal to the two main clubs he played for, initially Stoke and then Blackpool, his wages were £7 a week during the playing season and £3 a week during the summer when there were no games to play.

At the time the clubs made the money, not the players, while in today’s world players have such an influence on club policy that more than one Premier League player is worth more than the club he plays for.

Meanwhile, the poorer clubs face going to the wall. Take for example, Portsmouth FC who have to give their England goalkeeper David James a £2m deal if he plays eight more games. They can’t afford to – so he won’t!

Money – either excess of it in the case of clubs like Manchester City – or lack of it in the case of Portsmouth and a host of other clubs which can’t attract foreign investment – now rules the sport while the footballing authorities seem powerless to stop it.

So can anyone? Perhaps – and it is ‘perhaps’ rather than ‘possibly’ or ‘probably’ – the fans will have their say. I say this because, in protest at how the Glazers are running debt-ridden Manchester United, and threatening to sell the fans’ beloved Old Trafford, supporters have launched a unique campaign which, in its own way, shows a stroke of genius.

With banners proclaiming ‘Love United, Hate Glazer’ they have begun to wear the original colours of the club, when it was plain Newton Heath FC, which is why, next time you see the ‘reds’ on TV, look out for green and gold sweatshirts and green and gold scarves on the terraces.

It might not lead to the Glazers relinquishing their control of the club, but it is a very visible two-fingered salute to the current money-obsessed hierarchy who think they do what they want with a national treasure.

Before the end of his career, spanning three decades and a world war, Sir Stanley Matthews had taken his weekly pay packet up to £20 a week.

A tea-total vegetarian he was one of the first professionals to think carefully about his diet, but even so there is no way that, in the modern game, he could have continued playing at 50 years of age. Sport has changed.

In today’s world a professional rugby player who plays on after 30 is the exception, rather than the rule. On the field of play, beat one man and there is always another one waiting to bring you down, such are the lines of defence that the coaches have devised.

A try similar to the one Gareth Edwards scored for the Barbarians against the All Blacks in 1973 would never happen in today’s game. Edwards, or any of the Barbarian ball-carriers, would have been lucky to get to the half-way line. In reality, most modern sports bear no relation to the same sports that bore their name 40 years ago.

In truth rugby, football, tennis and cricket all ought to be given different names, to distinguish them from that sport when it was played by a less-obsessive generation.
There are exceptions, of course, boxing being one of them and I would like to think that if a fit young 20-year-old called Cassius Clay stepped into a boxing ring today he would eventually become ‘The Greatest’ no matter era he fought in.

The same can’t necessarily be said of the great England and Yorkshire fast bowler, Fred Truman.

Towards the end of the 20th century to fill in time when rain (as usual) had stopped play in a Test Match at Old Trafford, the BBC filled the time by showing ‘Fiery Fred’ bowling for England in 1963 against the West Indies.

The England players, in their changing room, one by one stopped what they were doing to watch. Compared to the speed of the balls they were used to facing, they couldn’t believe how slowly Truman was, apparently, bowling the ball.

One of them spoke for all when he said: ‘No wonder they don’t need helmets . . . he’d (speaking of one of the greatest ‘fast’ bowlers in the world) only lively medium!’
Truman, who was commenting at the time, was told this and without pausing for breath defended himself by saying: ‘isn’t it strange how those old black and white films slow down the action?’

Last Thursday evening I stayed up late to watch the 2009 Sportingbet Sports Personality of the Year Awards, live from the Hotel de France, on local TV.

The awards ceremony has gone from strength to strength over the years and the organisers must have been delighted by the night and the feedback.

The public, too, deserve praise because although the event, this year, was held in Jersey, the overall winner and sports personality of the year was Guernsey’s US Junior Open tennis champion, 17-year-old Heather Watson.

So why do the Island public deserve praise? – Because too often, too easily, a Guernseysman might only vote for a donkey or a Jerseyman a bean.

But no. Heather received 59.4 per cent of a record total of 4,868 votes cast.
Also at the awards Jersey Leonis ABC coach Dave Thompson rightly deserved a standing ovation as he picked up the Michael Lucas Sporting Hero award for his contribution to Island boxing, a sport he loves and a love affair for a sport which almost certainly gave him extra determination in his fight against illness, early last year.

The Sportingbet Sports Personality of the Year Awards ceremony has now become an established part of island life. More people voted for the five finalists than ever before – nearly 5,000 islanders – and the organisers’ determination to make it a success has been justified.

The same could be said of the many organisers and committee members behind the JRFC, whose players won the Kleinwort team of the year award and Ben Harvey the Cenkos Coach of the Year award, also at the Hotel de France.

For it has been the determination of all those people behind the scenes not so much now, but ten years or so ago and counting, who deserve credit for persevering with a club which is setting new standards and attracting larger crowds than have ever been seen at St Peter (with the exception of the Siam Cup).

For the seeds of the JRFC’s success doesn’t lie solely with today’s players. It also rests with the Academy, which guides toddlers through to their teens when they, too, can start to play for the 1st XV. It lies with those who had the foresight to persuade Jack Walker to help pay for one of the best rugby clubhouses in the South of England in 1994. It lies with those committee members who bought Airport land and laid a rugby pitch and built a clubhouse in 1961.

In other words just as it takes a successful Awards Ceremony time to establish itself, so a successful sport or sports club needs time to bed in . . . plus foresight, vision, and . . . a long term plan.

I was reminded of this while I was watching Jersey RFC come back from being 3-15 down to Bishop’s Stortford last Saturday, to win 25-15.

The crowd was in excess of 800 and included girls and boys plus men and women of every age and everyone, including the Bishop’s Stortford supporters, seemed to be enjoying the occasion.

Meanwhile, at Springfield, despite being the better team on the day, a plucky Dandara Jersey Football Combination XI were losing 1-0 to the Dorset Premier League in the FA Carlsberg National League System Cup.

The crowd, I was told, was less than 200. The lack of regular competitive football at Springfield has clearly hit the ‘habit’ of attending live football. But bring back the competitive element on a regular basis and surely it will thrive again.

Finally, would Vanessa Perroncel have been interested in John Terry if his wage had been £7 or £20 a week? I think not. But in this day and age, if you sleep with an England footballer, you can always make money out of it.

At the time of writing Ms Perroncel is starting at £250,000, offered by a tabloid daily, for her ‘exclusive’ account of sleeping with the Chelsea and England captain.
Money talks. But what it says, at times, is scarcely worth hearing.

Postscript: I can’t wait for 25 and 26 April when the tour de Bretagne comes to Jersey. What a tremendous accolade that when the organisers decided to stage part of the tour away from mainland France for the first time, ever, they chose our friendly little island.