Fred Whitlow, arriving from Charlton Athletic shortly before his 27th birthday, claimed a club-record 33 league goals (including seven hat tricks) as City finished runners-up in the 1932/33 Division Three (South) season at a time when there was just one promotion place. Netting 61 times in his 83 league games for the Grecians, Fred moved to Cardiff in 1934 and later played for Barry where he had started his career. He scored six times in Exeter’s 11-6 win over Crystal Palace in the Division Three (South) Cup in January 1934 but was to miss City's victorious final. 

Born in Bristol, he grew up in Barry, Glamorgan. Playing for Barry in the Southern League as a teenager, he featured for his local club until joining Charlton Athletic in 1927 around the time of his 23rd birthday. Scoring 27 times in Charlton’s 1928/29 promotion season, he finished with 65 league goals for the South London club before signing for  Exeter City in something of a transfer coup in the summer of 1931. 

A day short of turning twenty-seven, he made his Grecians’ debut against Fulham on 2 September 1931 and scored 15 league goals during his first term including a hat-trick against Queen’s Park Rangers. Then, as City finished runners-up in Division Three (South) in 1932/33, Fred scored 33 times from his 32 league games including an improbable seven hat-tricks all achieved in home games.

A club goal-scoring record for a single season it was compiled in highly-unusual fashion after he had missed the first seven games of the season: 27 at home, 6 away; 33 goals in just 15 different games; 29 goals between game 12 (29 October) and game 28 (18 February). The following season Fred scored six times in City’s 11-6 win over a weakened Crystal Palace team in the first round of the Division Three (South) Cup on 24 January 1934. Suffering from injury, he missed the two semi-final replays  and final of the competition which the club won by defeating Torquay in the final.     

After also scoring thirteen times in the league in 1933/34, as the Grecians finished ninth, he signed for Cardiff City ahead of the following season but - after playing mainly in the reserves - he soon rejoined Barry where he managed a hundred goals in just two seasons. Opening a grocery shop on Barry Island, Fred Whitlow later returned to his birthplace of Bristol where he died on 6 January 1978 aged 74.