He began his career playing for North Whyalla juniors when he was about seven years old.

He grew into the local black and white team thanks to his dad Paul Shirley, who played for North for 17 years.

It was always Shirley's dream to make a career of football and his dad even had the proof.

When interviewed by the Whyalla News Shirley's dad pulled out an old school book page from when he was eight years old.

On the page Shirley wrote his thoughts were "when I am the best football player" and his aspirations was to be an "expert at football".

So Shirley got himself on the right track to do exactly that.

He played 16 games of senior football in Whyalla including 10 in 1996, four in 1997 and two in 1998.

Shirley's first senior coach was John Harris who recently gave the Whyalla News an insight on Shirley's debut senior footy year.

Harris said he always saw potential in Shirley to at least make it to the South Australian National Football League,

He said there was certainly one main strength in Shirley.

"Definitely his ability to run," Harris said.

"He had really good constitution, he could run all day and he would work hard."

He said Shirley started off as a defender on the half back line and progressed into midfield.

This was when Shirley was about 16 years old and to now see him 13 years on and doing so well has made Harris proud.

"No doubt it's a pleasure to see all kids go on to SANFL or AFL especially," Harris said.

He said it was "really good" to see him survive and reach the milestone in AFL and it just went to show that working hard led to good things.

Shirley's other senior coaches were Shane Grimm and Jack Blackwell.

But to get to where he was today, it didn't just take good performance in his local team.

At just 14 years of age, Shirley was frequently taken to Adelaide to play for the Woodville West Torrens.