Charlie Matthews played for Horsham in the West Sussex Senior League and had represented Sussex before joining the Albion in December 1911. After playing what turned out to be his only Southern League game as an amateur at Bristol Rovers, the Newhaven-born half-back was offered a professional engagement in September 1912, but his subsequent first-team outings were confined to the subsidiary Southern Alliance and Southern Charity Cup competitions.
A regular in the reserves for two seasons until answering the call to arms in 1914, Charlie lost his life on the Somme while serving as a private with the Royal Sussex Regiment, one of almost 2,000 men of the 2nd Battalion lost during the Great War.