Phil Matson


Phillip Henry Matson was a record-breaking swimmer, as well as a highly successful player and coach of Australian rules football in the early 20th century in Western Australia.

Family

Phillip Henry Matson was born in Port Adelaide on 22 October 1884 to George Thomas Matson and Emma Matson, née Duffield.
Matson was educated at a state school in Adelaide before moving to Western Australia as a youth.

Lifestyle

Outside from football, Matson's work was varied and somewhat inconsistent. He conducted stints as a miner, a tramway motorman, a farmer, a navvy on the trans-Australian railway, a lumper, a store clerk, and a 'Spot-Lager' retailer.
Early in his career, Matson was a teetotaler but eventually became a "social" drinker and was well known for his gambling habit. His unconventional approach to life caused problems within his family, who were sometimes compelled to live in a tent.
Matson offered to enlist during World War I. When rejected, he opted to live as a licensed Swan River fisherman and engaged more heavily in gambling. He operated two-up schools at Subiaco and Pelican Point, SP books in some city hotels, and an illegal gaming house in Perth. For a number of years, he held a trotting bookmaker's licence.

Swimming

Matson worked as a navvies' water-boy in Western Australia, and began swimming competitively in 1902.
He had been encouraged to take up football by his swimming trainer, William Howson, in order to "harden himself" for his swimming.
During his swimming career, Matson held Western Australian freestyle titles from 100 yards to a mile using the now-obsolete trudgen stroke. He won the 220-yard breaststroke at the Australasian championships for three consecutive years.
On 19 February 1908, Matson participated in the West Australian Amateur Swimming Association's Australian Championship in Claremont, Western Australia, where he set a world record time for the 220-yard breaststroke, winning by a length.
Seven days later, on 26 February 1908, Matson was swimming at a swimming carnival in Kalgoorlie when he broke his own world record by another 3.4 seconds, swimming 220 yards in 3 minutes and 10.6 seconds. However, because a surveyor's certificate could not be produced that precisely verified the dimensions of the pool, the governing body, the New South Wales Amateur Swimming Association, refused to ratify the new record.
Meanwhile, Matson's football career precluded him from being considered for the Olympic Games in swimming. He therefore turned professional for a £20 stake in 1909.

Football

A fast, vigorous, and versatile utility with an ability to take the big mark, Matson played at half-back and half-forward and took turns in the ruck. He played for both South Australia and Western Australia and captained the South Australian team at the 1914 interstate carnival.

Professional

Matson supported himself by playing football during an era when the game was supposedly an amateur sport. He moved clubs frequently, playing outside the main leagues if the price was right. Across 20 seasons, Matson played for:

East Perth

Aged 33, Matson found his calling when he was appointed as coach of East Perth Football Club in 1918. Matson worked on the players' confidence and garnered their respect with a methodical approach to his coaching. He was lauded for his ability to outwit opponents and exploit weaknesses. Matson's dominant personality helped recruit some excellent players and a dynasty was rapidly built. In nine seasons between 1919 and 1927, East Perth won seven premierships and dominated Western Australian football. In total, he played in twelve premiership teams and, in the last ten years of his career, coached teams into nine finals.

WAFL

He was an essential part of the state team, as a selector for the successful 1921 Western Australian interstate carnival team, and as the coach of the 1924 and 1927 teams that lost narrowly to Victoria. Controversially, he openly criticised Victorian officials in 1924 for encouraging violence against his team. This outburst would later come back to haunt him.

Castlemaine (BFL)

In 1925, Matson accepted an offer to coach the Castlemaine Football Club, in the Victorian goldfields, in the club's first year in the Bendigo Football League competition. He was cleared as both player and as coach to Castlemaine in April 1925.
With Matson's coaching, Castlemaine made the 1925 Grand Final, but lost to South Bendigo by 14 Points: 7.12 to 6.4.

Richmond (VFL)

Impressed with his effort in lifting the team into the Grand Final, Richmond officials approached Matson with an offer to succeed Dan Minogue as the Tigers' coach for 1926. Matson accepted and relocated to Melbourne.
However, the Victorian Football League refused Matson a permit to take up the job, which incensed both the club and prospective coach. It was variously suggested that the VFL officials had not forgotten Matson's outburst two years earlier, or that they disapproved of his "unconventional" lifestyle.

Western Australia

Matson returned to Perth in time for the football season, and was re-appointed to coach East Perth. He took them to successive premierships. Matson had revenge on the VFL officials by inspiring Western Australia to two "spiteful, vicious, brutal" victories over Victoria in 1926.

Death

He died on 13 June 1928, from a fractured skull — an injury he sustained on 11 June 1928 in an accident on Hampden Road in Nedlands, when a truck driven by his former team-mate Horrie Bant, careered off the road, crashed through the bush, and collided with a post carrying overhead tram wires. Both men were thrown from the vehicle. Although injured, Bant survived the crash, and died in 1957. Matson struck the post with his head.
Survived by his former wife, their two sons, and his de facto wife Catherine Thompson, née Owens, he was buried at Karrakatta Cemetery on 15 June 1928.

Legacy

He played an important role in the process of making Australian football professional by openly negotiating fees that made him the highest paid Western Australian player and coach of the time.

Subiaco Football Club

He was selected at centre half-forward in Subiaco's "Team of the Century".

East Perth Football Club

He was selected as coach of East Perth's "Team of the Century".

Western Australia Sesquicentennial

In 1979 he was honoured with the bronze tablet for 1926, set into the footpath along St Georges Terrace, Perth as part of the WAY '79 sesquicentennial celebrations of the colonisation of Western Australia by Europeans.

Western Australian Hall of Champions

In 1986, Matson was inducted into the Western Australian Institute of Sport's "Western Australian Hall of Champions".

West Australian Football Hall of Fame

In 2004 he was an inaugural inductee into the WAFL Hall of Fame. He was elevated to legend status in 2011.

Australian Football Hall of Fame

Inducted into the coaching division of the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2004, Matson's position in Western Australian football was compared to Collingwood's Jock McHale in Victoria.

General references