Despite Port Vale being Matthews ' favourite team growing up, and despite rumoured interest from Wolverhampton Wanderers, Birmingham City, Aston Villa, and West Bromwich Albion ; Tom Mather convinced his father to allow Matthews to join the Stoke City staff as an office boy on his fifteenth birthday for pay of £ 1 a week.

Despite playing regularly for the national side, Matthews put in 38 games for Stoke in 1938 – 39, helping them to a seventh place finish – there would not be another full season of Football League action until 1946.

Despite his best efforts, Durban was unable to keep the club up, as defeat on the final day of the season consigned Stoke to relegation from Division One.

Despite predictions that they " wouldn't get ten points ," Blackpool took 39 from their 38 games, including home and away victories over Liverpool, consecutive away wins at Stoke City and Sunderland, and a home victory over Tottenham Hotspur.

Despite spending a lot of money on new players, Stoke were relegated to the Third Division at the end of the season.

Despite a decent enough start to his Stoke career he went on to have poor performances against Sunderland, Newcastle and Bolton and he was dropped by Pulis and Woodgate admitted that he needs to up his game.

Despite starting his Stoke career impressively, Harper was dogged by injuries that prevented him challenging for a first team place.

Despite these claims, Villa named Gérard Houllier as their permanent manager on 8 September 2010 ; however, MacDonald remained in charge for the following two Premier League matches against Stoke City and Bolton due to Houllier having to work his notice with the French Football Federation.

Despite leading Derby to their first League Cup semi-final in 40 years by defeating Stoke City, newspapers continued to report Jewell's job was unsafe.

Despite its rural setting, Stoke St Mary is very well-connected.

Despite the excitement being caused by the trial and sentence of John Brown, Rhode Islanders turned their attention to the state elections.

Despite being able to crawl on land, many of these prehistoric tetrapodomorph fish still spent most of their time in the water.

Despite being quite religious, he was also interested in mathematics and science, and sometimes is claimed to have contradicted the teachings of the Church in favour of scientific theories.

* 1388 – Despite being outnumbered 16 to 1, forces of the Old Swiss Confederacy are victorious over the Archduchy of Austria in the Battle of Näfels.

Despite being outscored over the season, the Diamondbacks posted the best record in the NL with 90 wins and 72 losses.

Despite being at one time a defender of metaphysical realism, Hilary Putnam later abandoned this view in favor of a position he termed " internal realism ".

Despite being epileptic, Charles achieved respect both as a commander and as a reformer of the Austrian army.

Despite being younger than the other contenders, Ahmad Shah had several overriding factors in his favor.

Despite this, there were also several superstar hitters, the most famous being Honus Wagner, held to be one of the greatest shortstops to ever play the game, and Detroit's Ty Cobb, the " Georgia Peach.

Despite being offered the chance to remain as ruler of Bavaria ( under strict terms of an alliance with Austria ), the Elector left his country and family in order to continue the war against the Allies from the Spanish Netherlands where he still held the post of governor-general.

Despite being short on cash at times, he often refused money that his friends offered him out of their own pockets.

Despite strenuous efforts, Captain Hood's isolated ship came under heavy fire and was unable to cut off the trailing Justice as the French survivors escaped seawards, Zealous being struck by a number of French shot and losing one man killed.

Despite the term blitzkrieg being coined by journalists during the Invasion of Poland of 1939, historians Mathew Cooper and J. P Harris generally hold that German operations during it were more consistent with more traditional methods.

Despite fox hunting being banned by the Hunting Act in 2004, Boxing Day remains the biggest hunt of the year for most hunts in the UK by use of scent drag trails instead of live quarry.

Despite being predominantly peaceful in nature, the revolution was not without violent clashes between security forces and protesters, with at least 846 people killed and 6, 000 injured.

Despite being attached to the curse, Colavito said that he never placed a curse on the Indians but that the trade was prompted by a salary dispute with Lane.

Despite being well out of playoff contention the Cubs went 24 – 13 under Quade, the best record in baseball during that 37 game stretch and was hired as manager on October 19.

Despite being extensively hunted, the coyote is one of the few medium-to large-sized animals that has enlarged its range since human encroachment began.

Despite swimming being a part of imperial education, Caligula could not swim.

Despite being a Methodist, he made reference to the Buddha in his diary, and encouraged the establishment of a Buddhist political party under Master Taixu.

" Despite being significantly more advanced than its predecessors, the Armstrong gun was rejected soon after its integration, in favor of the muzzle-loading pieces that had been in use before.

Despite being one of Mather's most well-known works, many have openly criticized it, labeling it as hard to follow and understand, and poorly paced and organized.

Despite its being a non-metric unit, a number of metric countries have used this unit for its limited range of application.

Despite these complaints, Clement is generally not considered a heretic in the Catholic Church, but such concerns about his orthodoxy led to him being removed from the Roman martyrology in 1586, and he is not revered as a saint in contemporary Roman Catholicism.

Despite not being natural persons, corporations are recognized by the law to have rights and responsibilities like natural persons (" people ").

Despite this success, Lane's compulsive generosity with her family and friends often found her strapped for cash and forced to work on material that paid well, but did not engage her growing interests in political theory and world history.

Despite Woodruff's continuing refusal to debate with Pike through the columns of his newspaper, Pike did not let up his attack for a moment.

Despite the many avenues for the exchange of ideas between faculty and administration, complaints of a lack of communication persist.

Despite the opposition of the city newspapers, the Pratt Hall meeting `` brought together a very respectable audience, composed in part of those who had been distinguished for years for their radical views upon the subject of slavery, of many of our colored citizens, and of those who were attracted to the place by the novelty of such a gathering ''.

'' Despite Company threats, duly carried through, to cut off supplies of powder, ball, and thread for fishing nets, about 350 persons stayed in the village.

Despite this prohibiton, by 1844 some of the Fort Garry merchants were trading with the Indians for furs.

Despite Giffen's warning, Palfrey still had plans for freeing his slaves in Louisiana.

Despite his personal distaste for obesity ( `` disgusting '' ), Dr. Keys has only an incidental interest in how much Americans eat.

Despite the bitterness of the defeat for Lincoln, his articulation of the issues gave him a national political reputation.

Despite his inelegant appearance — many in the audience thought him awkward and even ugly — Lincoln demonstrated an intellectual leadership that brought him into the front ranks of the party and into contention for the Republican presidential nomination.

Despite this, the eggs are laid singly, a behaviour not conducive for external fertilisation.

Despite the large number of species in order Asterales, they do not compare in economic benefit for mankind to the Poales or to the Fabaceae.

Despite these facts, most mathematicians accept the axiom of choice as a valid principle for proving new results in mathematics.

Despite continuous wars or imperial expansion on the Empire's frontiers and one year-long civil war over the imperial succession, the Mediterranean world remained at peace for more than two centuries.

Despite these activities, for some time, the Alemanni seem to have continued their pagan cult activities, with only superficial or syncretistic Christian elements.

Despite his initial reluctance, Johnson agreed to run for re-election for governor in 1855, and became the nominee at the party convention.

Despite the legend of his divorce and remarriage, Amram was also held to have been entirely sinless throughout his life, and was rewarded for this by his corpse remaining without any signs of decay.

Despite his love and efforts towards international peace, Carnegie faced many dilemmas on his quest for world peace.

* Despite its heritage, Applesoft lacked commands common to most other Microsoft BASIC interpreters, such as INSTR ( which searched for a substring in a given string ; this had to be done manually with loops and the MID $ function ), PRINT USING ( which formatted numbers with commas and currency signs according to a format string ), and INKEY $ ( which checked for a keypress without stopping the program as Applesoft's GET command — analogous to the INPUT $ function — did, although a PEEK location did provide this functionality ).

Despite the fact that four of his sons ( Aban, Abd al Rahman, Muhammad and Ahmad ) were alive at the time of his death, all of them were passed over for succession.

Despite trailing the Nintendo Entertainment System in terms of number of units sold, the 7800 was a profitable enterprise for Atari Corp., benefiting largely from Atari ’ s name and the system's 2600 compatibility.

Despite having the capability to support sound chips in cartridges, almost no 7800 cartridges feature POKEY hardware for enhanced sound.

Despite a brief spell at a traditional preparatory school at the age of seven for one year, ` Abdu ' l-Bahá received no formal education.