St Patrick's Cricket Club loses founding father Norm Wighton

Norm Wighton lost his short battle with leukemia last Friday. He was 90.

"He was so generous with his time, his passion was cricket, his first love was always St Pat's," acting president Tony Hill said.

"He's one of our first life members and right up until this year he would go and watch the first grade team play.

"He was there for our inaugural past v present players game in March last year and you could tell that he wanted to be out on the field to play but, at 89 then, he had to pull back."

Wighton actually started playing first grade with East Albury from 1948-49 to 1955-56, claiming a premiership in his penultimate season.

He was then a founding member of the reformed St Patrick's in 1956-57 and played in their three premierships in four seasons, starting 1968-69.

When St Pat's snapped a 32-year premiership drought in 2003-04 - Wighton played in the previous one in 1971-72 - the players remembered him.

"The boys partly dedicated that premiership to Norm because of his influence and the culture that he helped create," Hill said.

"Our culture (motto) is Facta, Non Verba, deeds not words, and Norm certainly lived that."

An all-rounder, Wighton was a left-hand batsman, scoring 102 not out against Murray South, along with a number of half-centuries in his near 30-year career.

A right-arm leg-spin bowler, who once took 7-69 against City Colts, Wighton also represented the association at Melbourne's Country Week.

Wighton was awarded the Australian Sports Medal in 2000 for services to cricket and was inducted into Cricket Albury Wodonga's Hall of Fame in 2014.

He played 243 games over 20 years after both captaining and coaching St Pat's.

And mentoring remained a passion, serving as director of coaching for Murray Cricket Council.

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"I can always remember Norm sitting there watching a game of cricket and in his early days, he would stand up and play the shot that the batsman should have played when dismissed and in his later years he would move his hands in the direction the shot should have been played, elbow up," Hill said.

"If he was given the opportunity he would talk to that batsman about what he could do in the future but it was in a humble way, he didn't come across as all-knowing, he would only do it if that batsman asked for help."

Wighton had an ability to make people, of all ages, feel special. It was part of his gentlemanly nature.

"He could remember peoples' names that he hadn't seen for 20 or 30 years," Hill said.

"He'd look them in the eye, shake their hand and say, 'hi, how are you (insert name)', he would do that to everybody.

"To women, he was the consummate gentleman, if he was wearing his hat, he would dip his hat.

"He was an old school gentleman."