BIO
It is believed that Merv Angel played the odd game with Norwood as new men were tried with the introduction of electorate football in 1898.
Born at Norwood on 26 May 1880, Merv was the second-youngest of "the Angel dozen" - eight sons and four daughters of Advertiser compositor/night overseer Alf Angel and his Scottish wife Maria, a prominent Unitarian and League of Nations supporter. Four of Merv's brothers, Walter, Charley and the twins Frank and Sidney, were among the pioneers of lawn tennis in the colony. By contrast, Merv was cricketing allrounder, noted for his punishing batting as he rose through the ranks from Rose Park to East Torrens in the early 1900s, playing with Jack Lyons, Bill Gunn and George Giffen.
He later played for the Norwood Football Cricket Club in the Adelaide and Suburban association. His batting average of 47 was second to Sid White's 52 in season 1914-15 and he was a useful change bowler. Merv Angel and Bruce Townsend chose teams to play a patriotic cricket match at Norwood Oval on Christmas Day 1915, the sixpence admission charge aiding the Wounded Soldiers' Fund.
Merv's youngest brother Roy, a cricket clubmate, enlisted to serve in World War I and was only 26 when he was killed in action in France as a member of the 7th Field Ambulance in May 1917.
A civil servant, Merv enlisted in August 1917 and served on the Western Front in the 5th Field Ambulance. He was recorded as 165 cm tall and 68 kg in weight, with dark brown hair, hazel eyes and a dark complexion. He returned to Adelaide early in 1920 and married Gertrude May Norman at St Aidan's Church, Payneham. Both were 44. There were no children. Bert was 75 when he died at Beulah Park on 18 March 1956.
His eldest sister, Jessie, married Norwood footballer Albert Wight. Of his brothers, Alfred was a Hansard reporter in Victoria, Sidney a banker in WA, Frank a noted ornithologist, William a State Savings Bank inspector and Charley a real estate valuer whose civic duties included service on the Queen Victoria Hospital board.
P Robins March 2018