Where can I find the manual for the standard class article of LaTex?

Type texdoc article in a terminal.

It looks like the journal you're contemplating submitting your paper to requires you to use the article class but doesn't provide any real guidelines regarding the layout of the title and author blocks. I would therefore go with a minimalist layout. For instance,

\documentclass{article}
\setlength\textheight{2.35in} %% just for this example
\title{Some interesting findings\thanks{%
Our research was not supported by any foundations.}}
\author{First1 Last1\thanks{%
Department of XYZ, University of So-and-So, Nowhere-in-Particular.}
\and
First2 Last2\thanks{%
Department of ABC, College of Been-There-Done-That, Middle-of-Nowhere.}}
\date{September 2014}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\end{document}