Matthew Thomas Ritchie (born 10 September 1989) is a professional footballer who plays as a winger or wing-back for EFL Championship club Portsmouth.

[4] Ritchie had been involved in Portsmouth's academy since he turned 13, previously playing football locally in Gosport, starting at the age of six.

[10] However, he soon found himself out of the Portsmouth line-up and, with the club having disbanded its reserve team, manager Steve Cotterill agreed to loan out the player for fitness reasons.

[11] Ritchie played reserve and academy football at Pompey until late September and continued to impress until he was taken on a one-month loan deal by League Two club Dagenham & Redbridge.

[22] After Danny Wilson failed to secure Ritchie's services on a permanent deal during the transfer window, it was announced on 11 February 2010 that Swindon Town had signed the midfielder on loan for the remainder of the season.

[27] Under manager Paolo Di Canio in League Two, he retained his first team place in the starting eleven and scoring form with ten goals that season.

[citation needed] His form helped the side to top the Championship and won him international recognition with Scotland.

[41] On 25 October 2015, Ritchie scored his team's only goal of the game after just one minute, in Bournemouth's 5–1 drubbing by Tottenham Hotspur.

[46] From then on, Ritchie would become the club's designated penalty taker and had a 100% success rate in all competitions, converting from the spot five times.

On 25 October, he refused to hand the ball to Aleksandar Mitrović, tucking it under his shirt, before scoring the third goal in a 6–0 win over Preston North End.

[47] On 5 April 2017, against Burton Albion, Ritchie scored a penalty, but it was not awarded due to encroachment by Dwight Gayle.

However, referee Keith Stroud awarded a direct free kick to Burton, rather than allowing Ritchie to retake the penalty.

On 26 August, Ritchie assisted Ciaran Clark for the second goal of the match, as Newcastle got their first win of the season, beating West Ham United 3–0.

[59] On 18 January 2020, while celebrating Isaac Hayden's match winning injury time goal against Chelsea, Ritchie, following tradition, kicked a corner flag, hitting a fan in the groin.

[64] On 16 March 2015, he was called up to the Scotland national football team for a friendly against Northern Ireland and a UEFA Euro 2016 qualifier against Gibraltar.

Ritchie made his debut against Northern Ireland on 25 March at Hampden Park, and took the 85th-minute corner which set up Christophe Berra's header for the only goal of the game.

[67] After being involved consistently for Scotland until the end of 2016, Ritchie withdrew from several subsequent squads due to injuries – either unable to play at all, precautions over recurrence or having to rest during international breaks to improve his condition – appearing just once in 2017 and once in 2018.

[68][69][70][71] In November 2018, he requested not to be considered for selection for the 'foreseeable future' for reasons not disclosed by Scotland manager Alex McLeish.