By Tyler Wright
Belgrave Cricket Club is gearing up for its 2022/2023 season with an uninterrupted pre-season; its first since the beginning of the pandemic.
According to Belgrave Cricket Club treasurer Craig Poxon, the club is also approaching its largest year in terms of sponsorship.
“We just got the number three cricket club in Victoria for engagement and content on the last quarter, which was pretty awesome, because we’re such a small club,” Poxon said.
The club achieved this feat by publishing 77 Facebook posts between June and August seeing it come in third for amount of posts.
The club also received 2,214 reactions, comments and shares during the same time period, earning them sixth spot in engagemement out of Victorian cricket clubs.
Poxon said the club has introduced its first all-girls Under 14 junior side and is also hoping to add a second women’s senior side.
“The introduction of female sport, not only across cricket, but with football and then Netball being added to Belgrave [Recreation] Reserve has really shifted the culture a lot now,” Poxon said.
“It’s become a lot more of a family environment, and I think we’ve had a bit of a younger leadership crew come through, and everyone’s just sort of changing our perspectives post-Covid.
“We’ve really tried to do a lot of things with the local community… like [being] on the radio… and we’ve been running some business network nights at the Belgrave Hotel, we did one and then we’re gonna do one at the club soon.”
As part of the cricket off season, Belgrave Cricket Club held a trial for a mixed gender indoor team at Knox Indoor Sports.
With four senior men’s teams with players aged between 14 and 73, being a part of community sport has been beneficial for their mental health, Mr Poxon said.
“I think there’s just a real desire to connect back with the community…people definitely want to be in their local community more and be active and be a part of it,” Poxon said.
According to Poxon, the club’s prerogative is ensure players and community can take the field this season, regardless of the financial impacts induced by Covid.
“That everyone gets access to a community sports environment that enables them to do the things that look after their mental well being, but beyond that; we want to keep seeing our junior program grow and the kids enjoy the game and build those pathways into senior cricket,” he said.
“And if we’re lucky, we wouldn’t mind seeing a couple of premierships somewhere along the way.”
The local cricket season will kick off for Belgrave Cricket Club on Saturday 8 October.
