THIS is a story about my Dad, Cyril Whitely, born 14 December. 1910, in Albury, NSW. He was a great cricketer. Dad felt lucky having three older brothers all in different sports. His eldest brother Bert played football in Albury, Harold played tennis in later life and was quite good at it and Charlie, directly older than Dad, played both cricket and football and was the better player in the family.
My dad first played cricket at Holbrook Public School, 37 miles from Albury in NSW. His parents had a jewellery store there. At the age of ten Dad represented the school in both football and cricket. That was his start.
At age twelve Dad went to Albury to live with his elder brother, Harold, who was running the family jewellery store while his parents ran the store in Holbrook. At Albury public school Dad played football along side names like Haydn Bunton who played footy for Fitzroy in the 1930s and won three Brownlow Medals, Dinnie Ryan, also a Fitzroy player and brownlow medalist.
While still at Albury Public School, Dad played his first game of senior cricket in the Albury and Border competition. They were short of players and Dad’s brother, Charlie, got him to play with them for a game. Dad’s father didn’t think that he would be much help to the side and thought he was doing a good thing by offering a shilling for each run he made. Dad ended up making five shillings for himself in that game. That was his first grade cricket game and it was in 1922 when he was just twelve years old.
After leaving school he joined a team called Albury Builders Cricket Club. With that team he played B grade and won the batting average for the club in the first year that he played.
