Doug’s cycling life starts in his early teens with the Malvern Star championships. Doug wins the Arrow Consistency Cup and gets his photo in local papers. In Coolgardie he races the Widgiemooltha-Coolgardie (75km). In Norseman it is the longer Norseman-Higginsville (129km). In Kalgoorlie as Secretary for the Eastern Goldfields Cycling Club helps organise the Menzies to Kalgoorlie. Many tales of Hubert Opperman, a later friend and political colleague of Doug’s. In later years Doug was patron of the League of WA Wheelmen from 1959-1976.
Doug’s dad gets Doug boxing lessons at Paddy Hubon’s gym in his early teens and Doug becomes a boxing fan. Doug joins the WA Band of Hope and the WA Temperance League, Doug becomes a lifelong non-drinker (apart from a few mishaps he tells later in his story). The League had a large role to play in junior football in the state. Doug continues his ties to the League when he moves to Coolgardie and he leads the Cobbers Club there.