Phillip Henry Matson (22 October 1884 – 13 June 1928) was a record-breaking swimmer, and both a highly successful player and coach of Australian rules football in the early 20th century, chiefly in Western Australia.
Family
The son of George Thomas Matson (1842-1915),[1][2][3] and his wife Emma (1854-1928),[4] née Duffield, Phillip Henry Matson, was born at Port Adelaide on 22 October 1884.
Matson was educated at state school in Adelaide before moving to Western Australia as a youth.
Lifestyle
Away from football, Matson's working was varied and somewhat inconsistent. He had stints as a miner, a tramway motorman, a farmer, a navvy on the trans-Australian railway, a lumper, a storeman and a 'Spot-Lager' retailer.
Early in his career, he was a teetotaller 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; however, when rejected he opted to live as a licensed Swan River fisherman and involve himself more heavily in gambling. He operated two-up schools at Subiaco and Pelican Point, SP books in some city hotels, and later an illegal gaming house in Perth. For a number of years, he held a trotting bookmaker's licence.
Swimming
He worked as a navvies' water-boy in Western Australia, and began swimming competitively in 1902 and playing Australian football.
He had been encouraged to take up football by his swimming trainer, William Howson (who had, himself, established a world-record in 1904, swimming underwater for 110 yards), to "harden himself" for his swimming.[5]
During his swimming career, he held Western Australian freestyle titles from 100 yards (91 m) to a mile (1.6 km) using the now-obsolete trudgen stroke,[6][7] and won the 220-yard breaststroke at the Australasian championships in three consecutive years (1905, 1906, and 1907).
On 19 February 1908, swimming at the Australian championships, conducted by the West Australian Amateur Swimming Association at Claremont, Western Australia, Matson set a world record time for the 220-yard breaststroke: three minutes and fourteen seconds, winning by a length (having touched equal first at the last turn).[8]
Seven days later, on 26 February 1908, swimming at a swimming carnival in Kalgoorie, Matson broke his own world record by another three and two-fifths seconds, when he swam the distance in three minutes and ten and three-fifths of a second.[9][10] However, because a surveyor's certificate could not be produced that precisely verified the dimensions of the pool (i.e., the exact length of the swim) the governing body, the New South Wales Amateur Swimming Association, refused to ratify the new record.[11]
Because his playing professional football at the same time precluded him from being considered for the Olympic Games, he turned professional for a £20 stake in 1909.
Football
"[Matson] himself was a wonderful footballer. His name has been bracketed with that of the late Albert Thurgood as the best player of all time. Grim, relentless, shrewd, strong as a lion, courageous and trier from start to finish, Matson was a great figure on the field." — The Sporting Globe, 20 July 1928.[12]
"All up, Matson played and/or coached nine clubs and was involved in 13 premiership (five as a player, four as player/coach and four as coach) and four runner-up teams in 25 completed seasons." — Peter Carter.[13]
A fast, vigorous and versatile utility with an ability to take the big mark (despite being only 179 cm), he played at half-back and half-forward and took turns in the ruck.[14] He played for both South Australia (1909–10) and Western Australia (1908, 1911, 1914) and captained the South Australian team at the 1914 interstate carnival.[15]
MR. MOFFAT'S TRIBUTE
Yeoman Services to Game
"I exceedingly regret to learn of Phil Matson's death", said Mr. A.A. Moffatt,
president of the W.A. Football League and of the Australian Football Council,
this morning. "League football has been deprived of one whose loss will be
difficult to replace. Western Australia has had many fine exponents of Australian
football. With the exception of the late A.J. Thurgood, I cannot recall to mind
another player whom I would place in front of the late Phil Matson as the finest
footballer who has thrilled the public of our State. No position on the field would
find him misplaced. At all times the ball was his objective, not the man. His
judgment was uncanny, and once he placed his hand on the ball it was gripped
as if in a vice. His aerial flights were spectacular and thrilling, and being
possessed of exceptional football brains, the results of his play were often
confounding to opposing teams.
"Apart from his qualities on the field, he was an outstanding judge of
players, and as a tactician was not surpassed. Over a period of very many
years Phil Matson had rendered yeoman service as a player to the clubs with
which he had been associated on the goldfields and in the metropolitan area.
To his adopted State of Western Australia he gave of his best, and as a
representative in the carnival games, in which he participated, was always one
of the outstanding players. The Sturt Club and the South Australian public had
many appreciative opinions of his exceptional ability as a player during the time
he played in that State. GREATEST COACH OF ALL.
"On his retirement from the playing fields he became celebrated as a coach,
not only to his club, but to State and carnival teams. In this he was equally as
successful as he had been as a player, and in my opinion was the greatest
coach the Australian game has known, not excepting even the famed Colling-
wood mentor, Jim M'Hale. Players and others associated with the game will
fully realise the great loss his death means and the difficult gap thereby created.
With the players Phil Matson seemed to be a super-coach, having a personality
which enabled him to extract from those he was handling the best that was
within them. His pre-match and half-time addresses were of such a nature that
players and others privileged to hear them became inspired with the sound
advice he tendered. Words were never wasted, and he always, succeeded in
striking the target at the right spot.
"The record of successes achieved by him will be a lasting memorial to
his greatness, and, in conjunction with many, others, I deeply deplore the
untimely severance of his connection with the national game in which he
was such an outstanding personality." The Daily News, 14 June 1928.[16]
Professional
Matson supported himself 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. Over 20 seasons he played for:
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,[32] as a selector for the successful 1921 Western Australian interstate carnival team, and as the coach of the 1924,[33] and the 1927 teams[34] that lost narrowly to Victoria. Controversially, he openly criticised Victorian officials in 1924 for encouraging violence against his team. This outburst came 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 (he played in 2 or 3 games) and as coach to Castlemaine in April 1925.[35]
With Matson's coaching, Castlemaine made the 1925 Grand Final, but lost to South Bendigo by 14 Points: 7.12 (54) to 6.4 (40).[36][37][38][39]
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.[40] Matson accepted and relocated to Melbourne.
However, the Victorian Football League (VFL) refused Matson a permit to take up the job, which incensed both the club and prospective coach.[41] 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.[42]
Western Australia
Matson returned to Perth in time for the football season, and was re-appointed to coach East Perth.[43] 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,[44] from a fractured skull — an injury he sustained on 11 June 1928 (as the only passenger) 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.[45][46][47][48]
Survived by his former wife, their two sons (Glenn and Cliff), and his de facto wife Catherine Thompson, née Owens,[49][50] he was buried at Karrakatta Cemetery on 15 June 1928.[51][52][53][54]
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.
Phil Matson, who is revered in Western Australia as one of that state's greatest ever coaches in much the same way Collingwood's Jock McHale is revered in Victoria.
^Matson broke the previous world record for the distance by three and two-fifths of a second; the second place-getter, Trevor Richardson, also broke the previous world record for the distance (by two and two fifths of a second): Swimming, The West Australian, (Thursday, 20 February 1908), p.5.
^Note that, because the timing was made in units of fifths of a second, Matson's time can not be represented as 3min 10.6secs.
