Being born and bred in Balgownie in the heart of the northern Illawarra coalfields, of course Mathew Findley was going to be a footballer, just not one of any great note, sadly.
Mathew was one of the lucky ones, he enjoyed his football as a right winger with the Fairy Meadow Rosebuds, went to war as a 24 year old miner, returned home, almost unscathed, got married, and lived a full and happy life, outliving many of his contemporaries.
The son of a butcher who was bankrupted while Mat was still young, Findley went into the mines and was one of the first from Balgownie to enlist, signing up in Liverpool on April 9, 1915 and being assigned to C Company of the 19th Battalion AIF. Four months later he was shot in the right calf at Gallipoli and found himself hospitalised in Malta recuperating. Not a good spot for a right winger to be shot.
Ellis rejoined his unit for a second crack at the Dardanelles before they pulled out of the peninsula and headed to the trenches of France where his footballing career effectively came to an end after he received a second gunshot wound to his right leg.
Ellis married in 1923 and his life took him out of the mines, taking up the trade of an electrician. He and Dulcie were married for 27 years before her untimely death in 1950 Mathew then lived another 18 years and the couple were laid to rest in the Woronora Cemetery at Sutherland in Sydney’s south.