In partnership with Toyota.<\/p>\n
Achievements and growth have always outweighed individual acclaim for Armidale cricket stalwart Michael Porter.<\/p>\n
His unbeaten 36-year stint as president of the town’s cricket association earned him an Order of Australia Medal in January, which now sits alongside an ADCA life membership and Contribution to Country Cricket award.<\/p>\n
Yet such honours are not even mentioned when talking to Porter about what makes him proudest in a 60-plus year playing, curating, umpiring and administrative career<\/p>\n
“I don’t see it any different to being in a Lions Club or something like that, it’s just a community service role, you don’t do it for the accolades but you do it because you love it and you want to see people get enjoyment out of it,” Porter said.<\/p>\n
“Sport is the hub of the community I think, especially for the young people coming through. You can be a long time in the game and you can be a long time in other sports.<\/p>\n
“Team games are very important in my mind, especially at a young age, learning responsibilities and the team component, and the part they play.”<\/p>\n
Armidale’s cricket foundation has expanded immensely under Porter’s watch.<\/p>\n
Bellevue Oval, the town’s flagship sporting venue, is now one of the top country grounds in the state boasting a clubhouse, upgraded lights and a steel perimeter fence.<\/p>\n
But the finest project completed during Porter’s presidency is Armidale’s triple-lane indoor facility, which has transformed training in winter time when the temperature is capable of dropping below zero.<\/p>\n
“It allows the clubs to train in all weather conditions, and they can train in the offseason as well,” Porter said.<\/p>\n
“You get teams coming down here from northern inland and central north, and all the boys get together in the middle of winter when it’s four degrees.<\/p>\n
“The junior clubs train there, the senior clubs train there. Before Christmas every night of the week, except for Saturday and Sunday, it was booked out from four o’clock.<\/p>\n
“It’s added a new dimension to it all. It was a brainchild of myself and former treasurer John Croft and his wife, it’s come to fruition and it’s worked really well. I’m very proud of what we’ve done but it’s great to see the kids there and enjoying it.<\/p>\n
“If you’re running a sport, you’ve got to do what you can for yourself. You’ve got to be able to get off your butt and raise money, and achieve these outcomes at the end of the day.<\/p>\n
“Some [money for the indoor facility] came from the local association, some came from one of the clubs. We got money from the Armidale Sports Council, and then grants from the NSW Cricket Association T20 Legacy Fund, the Australian Cricket Infrastructure Fund and Building Stronger Communities.<\/p>\n
“It’s a pretty hard road to tow when you don’t get one grant to cover the whole cost. We did it all with the help of Cricket NSW and their guidance.”<\/p>\n
Porter turns 77 this year, and retains every drop of the passion he had for the sport when he took it up aged 14 as a left-arm quick bowler for Easts.<\/p>\n
He hung up his spikes 20 years ago, staying active long enough to play alongside his son, and shifted his focus entirely to off-field duties for the ADCA, and Easts, where he’s also a long-time administrator.<\/p>\n
After moving out of town more than two decades ago, Porter stopped curating but he still umpires.<\/p>\n
“I’ll go out tomorrow and umpire a game – it’s good fun, it’s a great place to watch a game of cricket,” Porter said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve often said if someone else wants my job [ADCA President] they can have it any time they want.<\/p>\n
“They can have it and they can do it and I’ll support them in any way they can. But I’m happy to do it while there’s no one else – I probably shouldn’t say that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In partnership with Toyota. Achievements and growth have always outweighed individual acclaim for Armidale cricket stalwart Michael Porter.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-460751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}