Bill Mather-Brown

Who is Bill Mather-Brown?

William "Bill" Edgar Mather-Brown is an Australian Paralympian. He was born in the Western Australian city of Fremantle in 1936. He contracted polio in 1938 aged 2 in the town of Agnew in the Goldfields, Northeast of Kalgoorlie. He spent 2 years in the Kalgoorlie Hospital before moving back to Perth. He has always been interested in sport and joined wheelchair sports in 1955. He went to the Stoke Mandeville games in 1957 and competed in several sports. At the 1960 Rome Paralympics, he won a silver medal in Men's Class B table tennis with Bruno Moretti and participated in the Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team. At the 1964 Tokyo Paralympics, he participated in wheelchair fencing as part of the Men's Épée Team. At the 1968 Tel Aviv Paralympics, he won a silver medal in the Men's Slalom A event and participated in swimming, table tennis and wheelchair basketball events.

In 2000, he received an Australian Sports Medal as a "basketball Paralympian - Captain/Coach since 1957". In 2001, he received a Centenary Medal "for service to the community through disabled and wheelchair sports".