AFL 2018: It’s 50 years since Leigh Matthews burst into senior football at the age of 16
IT’S 50 years since Leigh Matthews entered senior football with the bang of a premiership and the league goalkicking award. We look back on the remarkable career of one of the AFL’s greatest players.
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AT 16 he was already a star in senior football.
Everyone at Chelsea said it: the kid would go on to be a champion of the game.
He did. In fact, a panel of football writers held up Leigh Matthews as the greatest player of the 20th century.
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Chelsea folk saw it early. It’s 50 years since Matthews burst into senior ranks, topping the Mornington Peninsula league goalkicking with 68, three of them kicked in the Seagulls’ grand final victory over Seaford at Mornington.
Earlier in the day his brother Kelvin played in the Under 18 premiership.
The grand final made for a triumphant farewell to Chelsea for Matthews. The following season he went to Hawthorn. Accolade after accolade came to him during a 332-game career in league football, and his move into coaching ranks produced four flags to go with the four he won as a player.
Next month Chelsea is having a reunion of its 1968 premiership team and Matthews will be attending.
In the team photograph he sits to the right of captain-coach Kevin “Curly’’ Ellis, who played league football at Fitzroy before teaching took him off to the bush. He steered Drouin to a premiership the year before he joined Chelsea.
Now 73, Ellis said it was remarkable to think Matthews went straight from the fourths (Under 15) to the seniors.
“Yeah, he missed the thirds,’’ he said.
“His old man, Ray, was one of our selectors and we talked about it. He was quite keen for Leigh to come into the seniors but, like any father would be, he was just wondering if it was too early.
“But he fitted into the side beautifully. We put him on a half forward flank and he had good players around him and they looked after him. He just kept kicking goals for us.’’
Ellis said Matthews “never got knocked off the ball’’ and had “marvellous goal sense’’.
“He wasn’t hungry or anything like that, but he knew where they were,’’ he said.
“Was a terrific kid too. And he’s still a good bloke. He gets down to the club whenever they ask him to. He helps out in any way he can.’’
Chelsea stalwart Ray Stuart said the young Matthews was a dynamic player “capable of doing something out of the ordinary, very quickly’’.
“One of the things he always had, a trait, was that he could always line someone up if he had to … he had it from when he was 11,’’ Stuart said.
“It was a natural instinct — eye on the ball and if you got in his way, that was it.’’
Ellis took over as coach from Chelsea and Mornington Peninsula legend Kevin “Doc” White, who had guided the club through a golden era that took in the 1962, ‘63, ‘66 and ‘67 premierships. White stayed around to play in the 1968 flag.
The Matthews family moved from Langwarrin to Glenbrook Ave, Chelsea in 1962 and Leigh joined the club at the age of 12, lining up for the Under 15s.
“We wore Geelong colours and I was just the little kid on the wing, relishing the chance to put into practice the countless hours I’d spent in kick-to-kick and backyard one-on-one with Kelvin,’’ he wrote in his book Accept The Challenge.
He played in a premiership in his first season. And two more followed with the Under 15s in 1966 and ‘67 (the year he was captain).
Then he was into senior ranks, playing against men for the first time.
“Amazingly, in the modern era the well organised and lavishly funded AFL elite development programs churn out 18-year-old draftees who have mostly never played against adults,’’ he noted in his autobiography. “No wonder the draft system remains an art rather than a science.’’
Matthews played in the seniors in his first season at Hawthorn, meaning he crossed the bridge from Under 15 to league football in less than two years.
Ex-Collingwood player Alan Wickes was non-playing coach of Seaford, which Chelsea defeated 19.11 (125) to 9.14 (68).
*Chelsea’s 50-year reunion will be held on Saturday, September 15, from 2-8pm.
Cost of $30 per person includes finger food and a buffet.
The club is keen for all players and officials from the senior, reserves and thirds sides of 1968 to attend, along with those of the other successful 1960s teams referred to at Chelsea as “the camelot years”.
RSVP to chelseafssecretary@gmail.com.
More details: Ray Stuart on 0413 100 031 or Curly Ellis on 0428 580 550.
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