At 1.30am on Sunday 31 March 2019, the coach couldn’t sleep. He was anxious, nervous, and unsettled. He decides the best course of action was to burn off some energy and heads off on what became a 10km run around the streets and hills of Glenbrook at the foot of the Blue Mountains in Sydney.
The 10km run didn’t do the trick so he walks into his local gym at 3.45am where he works out for 2 hours. He then finds himself at the local café sipping coffee at 5.45am.
Michael Wholohan has lived in the Penrith district all his life and he is genuinely one of the great characters of cricket.
His father Trevor owned the local butcher shop in High Street Penrith for many years and became the inaugural secretary of the Penrith Cricket Club when they joined the Sydney Grade Cricket Competition in 1973.
His mum Patricia, Michael describes as the toughest person he knows and the world’s most understanding women. Those that knew Trevor might have a wry smile at Michael’s description.
Michael, who from here will be “Whooly”, was born in 1966. From the age of 7, he spent most of his time at Howell Oval in Penrith surrounded by cricketers of all ages. When he was 10 he was entrusted with managing the scoreboard for John Benaud’s first-grade team and was enthralled by the cricket chat in the dressing sheds after play.
Trevor had played many years of First Grade cricket for Cumberland and on moving to Penrith he captained their 4th-grade team and served as the Club’s President for many years. He also had the distinction of board representation at CricketNSW and Cricket Australia.
The game of cricket was in Whooly’s DNA.
At 8.00am on that Sunday Whooly arrives at Bankstown Oval for what is the last day of the NSW Premier Cricket Season, the Grand Final.
Michael has been Penrith’s Club Coach since 2003 and their First Grade team had not won the Belvedere Cup (Premiership) since 1982/83, some 36 years.
The NSW Premier Cricket Grand Final is played over 3 days. For the first two days, Penrith and Sydney University had played tough cricket. Sydney University had been bowled out for 207 and at the end of day 2, Penrith had just passed their score but had lost 9 wickets.
With 90 overs still to play, the game was in the balance as finals pressure, the scoreboard and the game of cricket have a funny way of playing tricks on players’ minds.
Whooly lives for sport.
He played his first game of cricket for Penrith at the age of 13 in 4th Grade. It was against Bankstown and their team included the young twins, Steve and Mark Waugh. Whooly hit a “magnificent 2 not out”
He had the talent to make his first-grade debut at Penrith in 1985 and scored 9 hundreds in the lower grades in his time as a player (one was a double hundred). He played 200 games at hooker for the Penrith Rugby Club and has been the PE Teacher at South Jamison High School in Penrith for 28 years.
With Penrith slightly in front after day 2, the Penrith junior and now club coach was never going to sleep easily.
But who does or could do a 10km run at 1.30am?
Whooly is also a marathon runner. Please don’t think for one minute Whooly has lived his life on green vegetables, yoga mats and all things healthy. He can and has partied with the best. The life of the party, mad as a cut snake and more often than not, best on ground.
He says, “I was also relatively fit and enjoyed running. Being short and stocky I surprised a few people. I remember going for a run with my good mate Angus Fraser (former English fast bowler) in 1988 and Gus said “oh you’re a fit f#$%… for a little fatty”.
After he retired from competitive cricket, he went straight into coaching Whooly, but something was missing.
Even though he’d been keeping fit by running 10km 3 to 4 times a week with a mate, there as a void, he missed the thrill of the competition.
“Why don’t we run a marathon,” he asked his mate.
In 2007, aged 41 he ran his first marathon, the Canberra marathon in 4 hours 15 minutes and loved it.
By 47 he’d completed 30 marathons. He set himself a challenge on completing 50 marathons by the time he’d turn 51.
Due to a couple of injuries his missed the target however in April 2019 at the age of 52, he raised the bat for his 50th marathon.
Cricketers dream of scoring hundreds, and after finishing his 50th marathon Whooly’s wife of 28 years, Jo asked: “so what now?”
Whooly had been silently planning, “I’m only halfway there! “.
At the time of writing, Whooly has since completed the Western Sydney, Gold Coast, Sydney M7, and Glenbrook trail marathons and is due to compete in the Sydney marathon on 15th September. That’ll be his 55th.
Whooly, “I’m doing the Berlin marathon on 29 September and on 6 October I’m doing a marathon that winds through Germany, Switzerland and Austria. I’ll do 3 more in Australia by Christmas, that’ll be 12 for the year and then I’ll get serious!!”
Told you he was mad.
Whooly takes over, “can I tell you a funny story.”
“I did the Tokyo marathon in March this year and ran into Billy Moore (former NRL player) the day before. He was there to run as well. We’d met a few times but years ago so I went over and said g’day.
“On the morning of the run, we caught up and as we were heading to the start we both needed to pee and pee badly”
“The lineup for the port a loos was long, really long, so I suggested a sneaky pee out the back. Billy to his credit said no, we’re in Japan, the culture, the police, we shouldn’t. Smart call so we decided to hold on and do our best.”
“We were starting from different compounds so we shook hands and wished each other luck. As I’m waiting it starts to rain, torrential rain, you could hardly see and it’s freezing cold.”
“They start playing the Japanese national anthem, the locals are singing and I’m gone. Here I am shoulder to shoulder with over 50,000 people, the national anthem is playing and I’m wetting my pants, …… full of pride”
Hahaha, we both roar, too funny….. but that’s Whooly.
He’s completed the London, Chicago, Tokyo, New York marathons and after Berlin at the end of September, he’s tackling the Boston marathon in April 2020.
These 6 marathons form part of what’s called the Abbott’s Medal. A moulded medal of achievement awaits. Whooly is quite chuffed at the thought.
Jo always travels with Whooly, they’re a team. She did, however, miss Chicago so their 20-year-old daughter Emma went along and ran the marathon with Whooly. Their son Jake represented NSW U19’s in cricket and plays First Grade in the NSW premier cricket competition.
For the Chicago marathon, Whooly ran raising funds for the McGrath Foundation and he did so covered in Pink.
“Socks, jocks, compression suit, watch, shorts, shoes, shirt, and hat – all pink” he proudly states.
For the Berlin marathon, he’s running for Breast Cancer Now.
What a legend, bloody fantastic.
Back to the cricket, it’s only 8.00am so he’s a little early as play doesn’t start until 10.30am. He’s still anxious and nervous and running on no sleep.
His Panthers are bowled out for 249 and have a first-innings lead of 42.
It’s now up to Sydney University to make the play as they have to score quickly and then give themselves enough overs to bowl Penrith out to win the game and the premiership.
After 35 overs with a lead of 149 and they declared and left Penrith with the option to score the runs or simply survive 50 over to become premiers.
For a young team that hadn’t won the competition for 36 years, it was game on.
I let Whooly take over.
“I remember watching it happen, everything was in slow motion but I can still see it very clearly. The Sydney Uni captain started walking towards one of our batsmen with his hand out. I watched him shake his hand and a huge shiver went up my spine, we’d won, we’d won the premiership”.
“Penrith were one down for 79 after 34 overs when Sydney Uni conceded defeat and every Penrith player, coach, and supporter sitting on the balcony of the Steve and Mark Waugh stand at Bankstown simultaneously went up as one.”
“Not in my wildest dreams did I think we could. The players had enormous self-belief and an incredible team spirit” says Whooly with incredible pride.
I smiled. Coach and players on the same page.
Run Whooly run, there’s another hundred in you.
Marathon Count
As at 20 September 2021 Whooly has completed 79 marathons
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