29 Facts About 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.

Phillip Henry Matson was born in Port Adelaide on 22 October 1884 to George Thomas Matson and Emma Matson, nee Duffield.

Outside from football, Phil Matson's work was varied and somewhat inconsistent.

Phil Matson 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, Phil Matson was a teetotaler but eventually became a "social" drinker and was well known for his gambling habit.

Phil Matson operated two-up schools at Subiaco and Pelican Point, SP books in some city hotels, and an illegal gaming house in Perth.

Phil Matson worked as a navvies' water-boy in Western Australia, and began swimming competitively in 1902.

Phil Matson had been encouraged to take up football by his swimming trainer, William Howson, in order to "harden himself" for his swimming.

Phil Matson won the 220-yard breaststroke at the Australasian championships for three consecutive years.

On 19 February 1908, Phil 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, Phil 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.

Phil Matson played for both South Australia and Western Australia and captained the South Australian team at the 1914 interstate carnival.

Phil Matson's judgment was uncanny, and once he placed his hand on the ball it was gripped as if in a vice.

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.

Phil Matson supported himself by playing football during an era when the game was supposedly an amateur sport.

Phil Matson moved clubs frequently, playing outside the main leagues if the price was right.

Aged 33, Phil Matson found his calling when he was appointed as coach of East Perth Football Club in 1918.

Phil Matson worked on the players' confidence and garnered their respect with a methodical approach to his coaching.

Phil Matson was lauded for his ability to outwit opponents and exploit weaknesses.

Phil Matson 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.

In 1925, Phil 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.

Phil Matson was cleared as both player and as coach to Castlemaine in April 1925.

Phil Matson returned to Perth in time for the football season, and was re-appointed to coach East Perth.

Phil Matson had revenge on the VFL officials by inspiring Western Australia to two "spiteful, vicious, brutal" victories over Victoria in 1926.

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

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

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

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.