Jim Matthews (sportsman)

James "Jim" Matthews (7 November 1919 – 25 June 1999)[2][3] was an Australian rules footballer who played with St Kilda in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He was also a tennis player and competed in the 1947 Australian Championships.

Jim Matthews
Personal information
Full name James Aubrey Matthews
Date of birth (1919-11-07)7 November 1919
Place of birth Culcairn, New South Wales
Date of death 25 June 1999(1999-06-25) (aged 79)
Height 179 cm (5 ft 10 in)
Weight 77 kg (170 lb)
Playing career1
Years Club Games (Goals)
1942 St Kilda 6 (3)
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1942.
Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com
Jim A. Matthews
Country (sports) Australia
Singles
Grand Slam Singles results
Australian Open2R (1947)
Doubles
Grand Slam Doubles results
Australian Open1R (1947)[1]

Matthews grew up in the New South Wales town of Culcairn but moved to Albury in 1935 to work as a sporting goods salesman.

In 1942 he played six VFL games with St Kilda, all in successive rounds.[4]

He joined the Army in 1943 and served with the 22nd Australian Field Regiment of the Royal Australian Artillery.[5]

Back at Albury after the war, Matthews was making a name for himself on the local tennis scene and entered the Australian Championships in 1947. He made the second round of the Men's Singles, beating William Edwards. He was then eliminated 6–1, 10–8, 6–2, by Adrian Quist.[6] He also competed in the doubles, with Max Bonner, but they were knocked out in the first round by third seeds Tom Brown and Bill Sidwell.

One of his best achievements in tennis was winning the Men's Country Championship Singles event on three occasions, in 1950, 1953 and 1954. He also had the distinction of touring New Zealand with a NSW representative team.[7]

As a footballer post-war, he was also a New South Wales representative. He is regarded as having been his state's best performer at the 1947 Hobart Carnival, where he played as a centreman.[8]

Matthews played in the New South Wales state team against Western Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground in June, 1949. [9]

At club level he turned out for Albury, in the Ovens & Murray Football League. He captained-coach Albury to a grand final in 1953, which they lost to Benalla. Often seen at centre half-forward, he was the league's leading goal-kicker in 1953 and won four Albury "Best and Fairest" awards, a club record.[10]

References
  1. Australian Open Results Archive
  2. "Genealogy". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 15 August 2013.
  3. "Jim Matthews – Player Bio". Australian Football. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
  4. "Jim Matthews". AFL Tables.
  5. "Matthews, James Aubrey". WW2 Nominal Roll.
  6. "James Matthews". TennisArchive. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011.
  7. The Canberra Times, "Albury Man Wins Country Singles Championship", 16 January 1950. P. 3
  8. The Hobart Mercury, "Sporting Roundup", 3 December 1947. P. 27
  9. "1949 - NSW v WA Teams / Match Results". Trove Newspapers. The West Australian (Perth, WA). Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  10. The Argus, "Where Two Codes Meet", 17 November 1953. P. 20
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