Never booked – but happy to make a fast buck on the black market

Secret MoD documents reveal that Sir Stanley Matthews was arrested in 1945

(GETTY IMAGES)

During an illustrious playing career spanning 39 years, Sir Stanley Matthews was justly renowned for his gentlemanly observation of the rules of football. In nearly 700 league games, he did not receive a single booking.

But when presented with an opportunity to make a fast buck on the black market during the Second World War while playing in Belgium for an ad hoc England side, the Wizard of the Dribble found the temptation to break the law impossible to resist.

Documents obtained by The Independent reveal for the first time that Matthews, along with another legend of English football, Stan Mortensen, was arrested for hawking contraband coffee and soap around Brussels during an international match while serving with the Royal Air Force.

Records of the Ministry of Defence released under the Freedom of Information Act at the National Archives in Kew, west London, detail how the two players sought to turn a quick wartime profit by approaching shopkeepers in the recently liberated Belgian capital in March 1945 with a suitcase filled with bags of coffee and soap while signing autographs and bragging that they were England internationals.

The incident, which resulted in both men being formally charged with "conduct to the prejudice of good order and Air Force discipline", is an early example of the tradition of ignominious behaviour by touring England players, ranging from the arrest in Colombia of World Cup-winning captain Bobby Moore in 1970, to the gaggle of drunken stars who rode the luggage carousel at Belgrade airport four years later.

But while headlines about the excesses of multi-millionaire players have become as much part of the modern game as theatrical diving and cliché-riddled punditry, the shady dealings of England's wartime footballing heroes hark back to a more modest era when even the most lauded team members were not averse to dabbling in contraband to supplement their meagre wages.

Competitive football was initially suspended in the early days of the war and later partially resumed on a regional basis, with top players such as Matthews and Mortensen "guesting" for teams close to wherever they were stationed with the armed forces. International friendlies were played by forces teams such as the RAF XI.

The documents, kept secret for 60 years, describe how the then 30-year-old Corporal Matthews, who had been stationed near Blackpool, fell into a trap laid by the RAF's Special Investigation Branch (SIB). Military police had received an anonymous tip-off that members of an "Armed Services International XI" playing in Belgium were breaking trading and currency regulations by trying to sell rationed goods.

Matthews and Mortensen, who would later form a famously deadly partnership while playing for Blackpool at Wembley in 1953 in the 4-3 FA Cup defeat of Bolton which became known as the "Matthews Final", visited a Brussels jewellery boutique, Bijouterie Assia, staffed by three female shop assistants.

After pretending to show interest in some bracelets, Matthews and Mortensen, who was the sole survivor of a crash in an RAF bomber in 1939 and whose turn of speed later earned him the nickname Electric Heels, proffered a suitcase they were carrying and showed their prospective clients what they had to offer.

In a statement given to RAF investigators, Marie Tumson, one of the shop workers, made it clear that the two players had not been worried about keeping a low profile. She said: "Whilst discussing the bracelets these airmen asked me if I would buy some coffee and soap. They opened a suitcase in my presence and showed me some coffee and soap.

"On this occasion the airman informed that his name was Mortensen and his friend was Stan Matthews. They both said they had played in an international match that weekend, which they had won. I gave a business card to Mortensen, who signed on the back of it in pencil, 'Best wishes Stan Mortensen'. I believe they left Brussels that same afternoon, as they came in again to say goodbye."

The sight of the uniformed sporting celebrities selling black market goods was interpreted as grounds for launching a criminal inquiry into the whole England team. A report to the SIB headquarters from an unnamed officer in Brussels said: "The verbal evidence accumulated since the inquiry began suggests that an investigation into the activities of all the members of the team whilst in this country is fully justified."

In the end, the two fleet-footed felons, who had helped the England side beat Belgium 3-2, proved easier to catch off the pitch than on it. When confronted with evidence that he had sold 5lb of coffee for about 700 Belgian francs, equivalent to about $16, Matthews simply said: "I am guilty, I sold the coffee." After receiving formal reprimands, the footballers were asked what they had spent their ill-gotten gains on. The rather old-fashioned response was that they bought presents for their wives.

Brits abroad Infamous England mishaps

Bobby Moore and the bracelet

A visit by the England captain to a hotel boutique in Bogota, Colombia, before the 1970 World Cup sparked a sporting and diplomatic crisis when Moore was accused of stealing a £600 emerald bracelet. After three days of house arrest at the home of a local football official, Moore was released so he could play in Mexico. The Colombian authorities eventually accepted protestations that the player had been framed as part of a blackmail attempt, or even an effort to disrupt England's World Cup preparations. It was later revealed that Prime Minister Harold Wilson ordered diplomats to ensure that Moore was not imprisoned.

Kevin Keegan and the carousel

With the sacking of Alf Ramsey as England manager in 1974, his disciplinarian style was replaced with a more relaxed stance on issues such as the consumption of alcohol. When several well-oiled England players started horsing around on the luggage carousel after arriving at Belgrade airport for a friendly, police moved in. Unfortunately for Keegan, who was not initially involved, he was closest at hand. The permed striker emerged after 30 minutes of questioning with a bloodied nose. A Foreign Office official noted that the player had been "undoubtedly roughed up".

Gazza and the dentist's chair

A trip to Hong Kong before the Euro '96 tournament hosted by England ended in ignominy when pictures emerged of Paul Gascoigne and team-mate Teddy Sheringham sitting in dentists' chairs in a nightclub, having bottles of spirits poured down their throats. Gascoigne then celebrated perhaps the greatest goal of his career against Scotland in the tournament by re-enacting the "Dentist's Chair" as his team-mates squirted water into his mouth.