Recruited from Bentleigh Football Club, he played his first match in round 11 of the 1947 season, against Melbourne, at Essendon's home ground, Windy Hill.
He played in the losing Essendon Grand Final team in 1951.
He played in the second ruck in the highly talented 1952 Essendon Seconds Premiership team that beat Collingwood Seconds 7.14 (56) to 4.5 (29):[5][6][7][8] Excluding the senior games that some had already played (or would go on to play) with other VFL clubs, the members of the Essendon 1952 Seconds Premiership Team played an aggregate total of 1072 senior games for Essendon Firsts.
His last game for Essendon was in the first (1956) VFL night football series, held at the end of the 1956 home-and-away season, under floodlights, at Lake Oval, at Albert Park, He coached the Victorian Football Association team Coburg Tigers from 1957 until 1961.
Almost from the inception of Australian television (November 1956), along with Percy Beames, Thorold Merrett, Doug Heywood, and Tony Ongarello, Bigelow featured in various football shows on ABC Television.