Now he is ranked No1 in New Zealand and preparing to coach the national team at the world championships.
A truck driver for Icon Logistics in Dunedin, Whalley moved to New Zealand from Great Britain in 2007. He had not played snooker for seven years when he was convinced to get back into it after a game of pool one night in 2014. From there, he began gathering national rankings points, eventually landing at No1 in the country earlier this year.
``Snooker's not massive in Dunedin, so to get to the No1 spot is massive for me,'' Whalley (51) said.
``It's been a bit of a roller coaster of a year. I'd love to play for New Zealand, but with my residency status, I'm still fighting for my residency.''
He teamed up with Jason Todd, of Oamaru, to recently win the New Zealand Chartered Clubs championship pairs competition.
That is not stopping Whalley contributing to the game's national set-up though. He has been made coach of the New Zealand team which will compete at the world championships in Qatar next month.
The team will fly out on November 16 and spend 2½ weeks at the tournament. He is looking forward to going, although said it would be a big challenge.
``It's going to be phenomenal. It's going to open everyone's eyes and when they all come back they're going to know what they have to do to compete with the rest of the world.
``I'm sure we'll be OK. I don't think we'll win it, but that's nothing against the players. They know what they're up against.''
It was difficult to find time to practise and play around his job and he was keen to coach anyone who wanted help.
Through coaching, he wanted to try to get New Zealand back on the world snooker map. He had arranged a session on November 6, to which he hoped to attract many local players.
``I want to concentrate more on coaching; we need some youngsters to come through. So we'll concentrate more on that in the next couple of years and we'll go from there.''
Whalley grew up in Newton-le-Willows, near St Helens, in England. He began playing snooker aged 15, being mentored and coached by his father.
He moved to Leicester when he became an international tour bus driver, earning his coaching papers from the English Association of Snooker and Billiards in 1999.
Before moving to New Zealand he had visited four times on holiday. While he visited England every few years, he did not want to move back and was proud to be coaching New Zealand.
He said there were many good players in New Zealand, but snooker was a different beast in the UK. There were thousands of exceptional players and to be highly ranked you had to travel the country to play at the top tournaments.
He loved the camaraderie of the New Zealand game and hoped to see as many people play as he could.
``If I won the lottery, I would take a year out of work and I'd go and play in everything, just to meet everyone,'' he said.
``That's why I coach. I like to watch everyone play.''
