![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1c961670-e6cd-4412-a_64768.jpeg\")
Portarlington Cricket Club junior players will have free access to cricket in the coming season. Photo: supplied.<\/p>\nTEENAGERS on the Bellarine will have free access to sport this summer thanks to the Portarlington Cricket Club.<\/p>\n
The club committee has voted in favour of removing playing fees for all junior cricketers in the 2026\u20132027 season.<\/p>\n
President Tom Dewey said after investing in club infrastructure in recent years, it now has the funds to invest directly back into players.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been on the radar for a few years,\u201d Dewey said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a couple of great years with events that we\u2019ve run and we\u2019ve decided that now we\u2019ve done all our investments with gear and infrastructure that we\u2019ll put it back in to try and get more kids to play cricket.\u201d<\/p>\n
Portarlington Cricket Club junior players will have free access to cricket in the coming season. Photo: supplied.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The club has received government funding in recent years to improve facilities, including new nets, electronic scoreboards and upgraded change rooms shared with the football netball club.<\/p>\n
Dewey said the committee hoped increasing participation would help make even better use of those facilities.<\/p>\n
As well as easing financial pressure on families, he said removing fees would give young people \u2013 particularly teenagers \u2013 more freedom to try the sport without commitment.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the feedback we\u2019ve received is if parents aren\u2019t sure if cricket is for their kids, they don\u2019t want to make that financial investment,\u201d Dewey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow if they want to come down for a week or for a season, there are no barriers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d also like to get as many kids from Bellarine Secondary College and the surrounding high schools to come in and play.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce they hit 15 it gets so hard to keep them going, so if they know there\u2019s a bunch of kids from school that go and it\u2019s free for them to come play together, we\u2019ll keep encouraging that for as long as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dewey said the decision was part of a broader long-term commitment to junior cricket at the club.<\/p>\n
In the past three years, participation in the club\u2019s youngest age group has grown from three players to 39.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just a grab to try and get new juniors down,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s really because we want to keep those kids going through the junior ranks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dewey also highlighted the social and community benefits of junior sport, saying cricket helped children develop teamwork, confidence and friendships.<\/p>\n
Cricket clubs typically begin pre-season training to coincide with the end of winter sport in late September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEENAGERS on the Bellarine will have free access to sport this summer thanks to the Portarlington Cricket Club.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-689504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689504","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=689504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}