A window into the past: the first Czech football ambassador to Malta was a woman

Football relations between the Czech (former Czechoslovak) side and Malta were not very developed, but neither were they zero. Several players and coaches have worked on the Mediterranean island, the most notable mark left by former Dukla Praha midfielder Dušan Fitzel, who sat on the national bench from 2006-2009 with a respectable record of 34 3-4-27. But the tender Czech football footprint was first placed on the island soil by a woman.

In 1967, English legend Stanley Matthews, winner of the first Ballon d’Or for Europe’s best footballer in 1956 and elevated to the status of nobleman for his services, met interpreter Mila Winter while touring Czechoslovakia with her Port Vale team

Matthews began exchanging letters with the then forty-four-year-old (born 5 April 1923) translator for the American embassy in Prague and spy for the Czech secret services, but contacts across the Iron Curtain were quite difficult. They allegedly met secretly in the German Democratic Republic.

Matthews became convinced that he had found the true love of his life, separated from his wife Betty Vallance, and spent the following years in Malta with the Czech-born woman. They bought a villa in Marsaxlokk, Matthews still played in the lower competitions for a while (at 50 years old!).

Local football bosses took advantage of the English legend’s presence and offered him a coaching job. In the 1970/1971 season, he led FC Hibernians Valletta to league and cup wins.

Later, the couple, married in 1975, moved to South Africa and then to Toronto, Canada. Mila died on 5 May 1999 at the age of 76 in Stoke on Trent, England, shortly followed by her partner on 2 February 2000 at the age of 85 in the same city.