Ray Matthews

Path to Success

As part of his seventy-fifth birthday celebrations, Ray Matthews set himself a challenge to run seventy-five marathons in seventy-five days to raise seventy-five thousand pounds. Impossible was the judgement of most. But only those who risk going too far can find out how far they can go…

Raised in a Catholic, working-class family in Rotherham, Ray was forced to make important decisions throughout his youth that would give him the mental strength to endure a series of physically gruelling challenges in later life. He became a boxer at the age of ten, forging the standards that led to a positive lifestyle and his belief that the difference between the possible and the impossible often lies between our own two ears. 

Path to Success documents how you need to be willing to stand on the start line, mentally and physically, because vision without action is nothing more than a dream.

Ray Matthews is a true Yorkshire man, born at a time when a certain Mr A. Hitler was still throwing bombs at us. Throughout his life, Ray has aspired to seemingly impossible feats of endurance, culminating in running seventy-five marathons in seventy-five days – a challenge which started two days after his seventy-fifth birthday – to raise money for his local special needs school.